English Peas, Spring Onions and Roasted Almonds

Just cooked English peas, sautéd spring onions and roasted, salted almonds are a delicious combination of tender sweet, sweet pungent, and crunchy just salty. You can set this side dish next to grilled fish or chicken or mashed potatoes and a roast. It's...

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Tropical Fruits Category Archive

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Guava

Serve guava slices on pancakes or waffles in the morning. In the evening, pair guava slices with a mild white cheese for dessert. You can even put guava slices in a baggy and send them to school or work in place of a candy bar.

The guava has the sweet flavor of a strawberry or banana or pineapple or all three. You can eat the guava out of hand or sliced or cubed and served in a tropical salad or puréed and strained to flavor poultry or pork sauces or as flavoring for mousses, ice cream bases, whipped cream or custards.

The guava is a large plum sized tropical fruit with yellow, red or purple-black skin. A guava can be round or pear-shaped and look a bit like a quince. The guava stands 2 to 3 inches tall. Its sweet, aromatic flesh can be yellow or bright pink or red and is moist and sometimes embedded with small, hard edible seeds. The rind softens to become fully edible but can be peeled away when the fruit is firmer.

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Popular Date Varieties

derriedates

The peak season for dates is from mid autumn through mid winter, October through January in the northern hemisphere. Select plump, shiny dates. Stay away from dates that are too sticky or covered with crystallized sugar.

Most dates will need to be pitted before they can be used for cooking or eating out of hand. When you get ready to pit them, dust your knife blade with flour to keep the dates from sticking to the knife.

You can keep dates tightly wrapped in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks. Dry dates well packaged in plastic can be refrigerated for 10 to 12 months.

The Middle East produces most of the world’s dates. California grows most of the dates produced in North America

Here are the eight most popular date varieties:

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Dates

Is there anything tastier than a date oatmeal cookie?

Well, perhaps, a Deglet Noor date eaten out of hand. Or perhaps, a spinach, date, and orange salad with honey dressing. Or perhaps a date stuffed with cream cheese or Brie or with a mix of chopped apple and bacon.

You see, there are many ways to enjoy sweet, sticky dates. You can add them to roasting pork or chicken in the last 15 minutes of cooking or you can include them in holiday breads and cakes and puddings.

The date—the small, oblong fruit of the date palm tree--is intensely sweet. Its sugary concentration of flavor is akin to dried fruit. In fact, sometimes dates are dried, but usually you will find them most tasty fresh.

There are more than 100 varieties of dates. About 25 of those are found in markets. Each falls into one of three moisture and texture categories: soft, semidry, or dry.

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Cherimoya

Got cherimoya? Got spoon?

You are ready for a tasty pineapple-papaya-banana-pear flavored treat that deserves its aliases “custard apple” and “sherbet fruit”.

The cherimoya is nothing less than a tropical dessert on the half shell.

The cherimoya’s flesh is juicy and creamy custardy. Its sweet flavors will swirl in your mouth.

There are only one or two ways to truly enjoy the cherimoya. You can cut it in half and scoop out the flesh with a spoon, or you can peel it and cube it and enjoy it with a fork. The only obstacle to a quick consumption of a cherimoya is its large black seeds; they slow you down just enough to heighten the anticipation of the next bite.

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Persimmons

Slice the persimmon down to the stem base once and then twice and lay it open like a flower. You can then enjoy its delightful sweet and cool flesh spoonful by spoonful.

Some say the persimmon has a pumpkin flavor mixed with allspice and cinnamon. You will surely find it exotically sweet and very juicy.

A ripe persimmon can be enjoyed as a dinner starter or as a dessert. It can be eaten out of hand like an apple or puréed and used in baked goods, puddings, and all types of desserts.

Persimmons mature through the summer but are not ready for harvest until late fall. They reach their peak after all of the leaves on the persimmon tree have fallen. The first frost is said to heighten the persimmon’s sweetness.

There are more than 50 common varieties of persimmons, but there are two that gather nearly all of the attention: the Fuyu and the Hachiya.

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Figs

Serve figs sliced and drizzled with milk or cream, perhaps add a dusting of sugar.

For a blend of sweet and savory, wrap fig slices in proscuitto, also thinly sliced.

Ripe figs are intensely sweet. Some say the fig is the sweetest of all fruit. That’s probably true. Figs were commonly used as a sweetener before sugar was known.

Figs can be eaten fresh out of hand, dried, or cooked. It’s been that way for thousands of years. Figs are one of the most ancient of edible plants.

There are more than 150 varieties of figs. Figs can be round or oval or pear shaped and can range in color from purple to black to green to white. Ripe figs have one thing in common they are very delicate and highly perishable.

There are two seasons for figs: first early summer and then again from midsummer through late autumn. In some regions, figs can still be harvested in early winter. In the northern hemisphere, fresh figs can be found in some farm markets at Christmas.

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Lime Cream

Lime cream can be used as a filling for hard meringues.

4 large egg yolks

½ cup sugar

1/16 teaspoon salt

¼ cup lime juice

¼ teaspoon grated lime rind

½ cup heavy cream, whipped

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Beat the egg yolks in the top of a double boiler.

Gradually beat in sugar and salt.

Add lime juice and mix well.

Stir and cook over hot water (not boiling) until mixture is thick and smooth. Remove from heat and cool.

Fold in remaining ingredients.

Pile the mixture in 6 individual meringue shells or in a 9-inch meringue pie shell.

Serves 6

Limes

Limes, lime juice, and lime peels can be used in marmalade, jam, sorbet, chutney, pickles, salad dressing, and desserts. Limes can be important additions in sauces, fish and meat dishes and in punches and cocktails.

Lime juice in small amounts accentuates the flavor of other foods.

In any recipe that calls for a lemon, a lime can be used instead. The only difference is that a lime has one and a half times as much acid, weight for weight as a lemon.

You may think limes are always green—“lime green”, but they will ripen to orange and then yellow if left on the tree.

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Grapefruit Varieties

Here’s a quick reference for grapefruit varities:

Duncan: lots of seeds, white flesh with great flavor; excellent for juicing; perhaps the oldest variety.

Flame: nearly seedless with red flesh and a slight rind blush.

Marsh (Marsh Seedless): nearly seedless, white-fleshed, medium-size with smooth yellow skin; it’s very juicy, tender and aromatic. You’ll find a balance of acidity and sweetness but somewhat less flavor than seeded varieties. This is a reliable old cultivar that’s great for juicing.

Redblush (also called Ruby Red and Ruby): seedless, pale-pink fleshed, and a yellow skin tinged with red. Red flesh fades to pink, then buff by end of season.

Rio Red: seedless, distinctly reddish skin and deep red flesh; firmer and smoother than Redblush; sweet-tart taste; excellent for juicing.

Star Ruby: seedless with the reddest flesh; clean and crisp tasting; easy-to-peel skin; smaller and less acidic than other varieties.

Grapefruit-Pummelo Hybrids

Melogold: grapefruit-pommelo hybrid developed in California; seedless with a sweet-tart flavor; bigger, heavier and thinner skinned than the Oroblanco; needs less heat than the true grapefruit.

Oroblanco: fruit is smaller, lighter and thicker skinned than Melogold; sweeter than Melogold; seedless with white flesh.

Kiwis, Oranges and Pomegranate Serving

3 large navel oranges, rind and pith removed

1-2 tablespoons sugar

About ½ teaspoon orange-flower water

3 large kiwis, peeled

1 large pomegranate

Halve the oranges lengthwise then cut across to create thin half-rounds.

Arrange orange half rounds in a straight-sided bowl.

Sprinkle with half the sugar and half the orange-flower water.

Halve the kiwis lengthwise; cut across into half rounds.

Arrange the kiwi half round over the oranges.

Sprinkle with the remaining sugar and orange-flower water.

Tip the dish and baste the fruit with juices.

Chill.

Cut the pomegranate at the blossom end.

Lightly score the skin in quarters; break the fruit into quarters.

Bend back the rind and pull out the whole seeds.

Sprinkle the seeds over the chilled fruit.

4-6 servings

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