Winter Skies, Kitchen Aglow

I know it seems like I have an incorrigible sweet tooth at the moment, but the truth of the matter is that I have just had one roast after another for dinner, and other than my amateur lamb inquiries, I am not going to bore you on what makes a good roast. There are quite a few perspectives on roasting, say, a perfect chicken: high temperature for the first 20 minutes, then lower for 12-15 minutes per 500g/1 lb; breast-side down until the last 20 minutes; breast up at all times and baste the bird every 20 minutes; brine for 24 hours first, then roast on the highest heat for a short period of time...I have tried them all, found what works for me, and have nothing further to add to the discourse on this most erudite of home economics subjects.

I can, however, suggest what to do if you have 350g of feijoa curd that you want to use because you cannot face starting the day with yet more toast slathered with this divinely tropical curd (life is so hard). My good friend Freya at Writing at the Kitchen Table suggested that I make an alternative to lemon meringue pie, and while this is indeed a grand idea, I felt the need today to make something for afternoon tea (what's new, eh?).

Feijoa Meringue Tarts

For the sweet shortcrust pastry (ALL ingredients should be fridge-cold to start):
225g/8oz flour
salt
113g/4oz unsalted butter, cut into cubes
50g/2oz sugar (caster or icing)
2-3 tablespoons milk (or water)

350g feijoa curd, or thereabouts (recipe)

For the meringue:
3 egg whites
110g/4oz cup sugar

To make the pastry:
1) Sift the flour with a pinch of salt.
2) Rub the butter into the flour and salt with your finger tips.
3) Once your have sand-like granules, mix in the sugar.
4) Gently work one tablespoon of milk into the crumbs. Add another tablespoon if not entirely cohering. You should only need two tablespoons of liquid, but, if the stars aren't aligned and the kitchen is too hot, add one more tablespoon.
5) Form into a ball and wrap in clingfilm.
6) Put in the fridge to relax for at least 30 minutes.
7) Allow the dough to come to room temperature before rolling it out.
8) Lightly flour your surface, rolling pin and hands.
9) Roll out your dough to either fit up to a 25cm/10" tart pan (for a proper and big tart) or to a size large enough to cut rounds that fit into a prepared (that is to say, greased and floured) 12-muffin tray, as I did. Leftovers from trimming the holders are to be brought together and rolled out again, so that each of the 12 holders is lined with pastry dough.
10) Put the muffin tray in the fridge while you prepare the meringue.

To make the meringue:
1) Whisk whites until stiff.
2) Add 1/3 of the sugar and whisk until stiff again.
3) Fold in another 1/3 of the sugar.
4) Reserve 1/3 of sugar for the final assembly of the meringue tarts.

To assemble:
1) Preheat oven to 180 C/350 F.
2) Spoon feijoa curd into each muffin holder. Only put in enough to fill up half of each holder because the pastry shrinks significantly as it bakes.
3) Plop 2-3 tablespoons of meringue on top of the feijoa curd.
4) With the last remaining 1/3 of sugar from the meringue ingredients, sprinkle a little over the top of each cloud of meringue.
5) Bake for 12 - 15 minutes until the pastry is flaky and golden and the meringue topping is gorgeously bronze.

The irony of the intention behind making these tarts is that the resultant product compels me to make more feijoa curd. Being over one week old, the banana-like aroma of the curd has disappeared, making way for a mellow pineapple scent. Encased in buttery, flaky goodness, these one-per-person delights are perfect with a strong and slightly bitter espresso.

Labels: Afternoon Tea, Feijoa, Tart

Feijoa is one of the greatest fruits in existence. Over-stretched? Many Kiwi properties have a feijoa tree, so this has to speak for its popularity...well, that and the fact that most people tend not to remove fruit trees unless they are diseased. The feijoa has made a resurgence in New Zealand, now found combined with sparkling mineral water, in vodka, and combined with manuka honey in hard-boiled lollies.

Feijoas feature prominently in my past. There is a walkway at the end of the street my parents live on, and along that walkway grew feijoa and passionfruit trees. As a child I used to yank the passionfruit that pushed through the netting and the feijoas that hung from the branches that overgrew the fence, thus going beyond the boundaries of the property and being available to the public. It was more convenient for me to procure the fruit during 1990-1995 when I had to walk up and down the walkway to and from high school every weekday. I was very lucky to reap the benefits of the over-hanging branches (these people were not commercial growers and let their trees get out of control, hardly ever pruning them). Those days are sadly gone now (not just high school but also the self-imposed pruning ban - the property must have new owners...), as are those of my mother's, when she would raid her neighbour's boundary-leaping feijoa trees at night time with her siblings and fill up pillowcases with this ripe, jungle-scented fruit.

Native to Brazil, Uruguay, and northern Argentina, the feijoa was brought to New Zealand in the early 1900s. Since then many cultivars have been developed, the most recently acclaimed is the Wiki Tu, whose substantial fruit is almost the size of an average man's hand. Depending on the cultivar, the feijoa's skin colour ranges from the traditional green found in Islam to a very dark avocado-skin green, and which turns slightly lighter as it ripens. The skin's texture ranges from smooth to rough, and some are thicker than others. The flavour is intensely tropical, often described as the combination of guava (like feijoa, it is also from the Myrtle family), pineapple and strawberry. I prefer the tangy Poanaumu and Kakapo varieties, which were developed in New Zealand. The feijoa varieties allow for a good couple of months of availability; they mostly ripen from April through June. For more information on harvesting, storage and cultivars, visit the informative New Zealand Feijoa Growers Association website.

At first I was not sure what I wanted to do with the feijoas I bought (yes, I had to buy them because I only have one family member who has a feijoa tree, and he ate them all; I shant scold him, for he also has a tree of Fuyu persimmons, a bundle of which I ate directly from the source one rainy afternoon last week). I thought about making a chutney, per my fellow Kiwi food blogger Emma at The Laughing Gastronome), and I was also tempted to grab a spoon and devour them (I only ate one from the bunch as it had been so long since I last had one, though they apparently grow commercially in California - no one I know there had ever heard of feijoas until I asked about them). These thoughts co-mingled with the dog-eared pages of many cookery books for various curds (Nigella Lawson's cranberry curd in How To Be A Domestic Goddess, Kate Zuckerman's Meyer lemon curd tart in The Sweet Life: Desserts from Chanterelle, and Tamasin Day-Lewis' redcurrant curd ice cream in Tamasin's Kitchen Classics). It is obvious from here what I decided to do...

Feijoa Curd

500g feijoas
2 eggs and 3 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
113g/4oz unsalted butter

1) Scoop out the flesh of the feijoas and blitz until smooth.
2) Into a bowl and using a spatula, push the smooth feijoa flesh through a sieve. Remember to scrape the feijoa on the underside of the sieve into the bowl.
3) In a separate bowl, beat together the eggs, yolks, and sugar.
4) Over a low heat, melt the butter in a medium-sized saucepan. If you are increasing the quantity, you may want to use a wider pan in order to speed up the setting of the curd.
5) Stir in the feijoa and the egg and sugar mixture.
6) Whisk constantly over a low heat until it has come together and has thickened, almost like custard. This took me approximately 15 minutes. Do not forget to stop whisking as you do not want to cook the eggs.
7) Pour the curd into a bowl and cover once cooled. It can then be refrigerated or used immediately.

It tastes similar to banana pancake batter but with a twist of guava. This almost makes enough for two 500g jars, if you are so inclined. I have kept mine in a bowl, in which it will last for a week or so. I like to have curd on toast, and there is still plenty for me to pour into a tart shell or to put between two cakes for a Victoria sponge.

Labels: Feijoa