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[Kiwithrottlejockey]

In season — Feijoas

What's growing in your garden or flooding the markets? In Season follows Witt chef Robyn Trowern and journalist Virginia Winder in their quest to source the freshest fruit and vegetables, and serve them up with simple sense and inspiration.

Taranaki Daily News | Tuesday, 02 June 2009



HARDY ANNUAL: Robyn Trowern waits all year to make this feijoa and banana cake. — MARK DWYER/Taranaki Daily News.

Feijoas are as prolific as recipes for the fragrant fruit. But when the green treasures make their annual appearance, it's great to have a choice in how to serve them.

This week, food artiste Robyn Trowern whips them into a cake, chops them into a salsa and bakes them in a brulee.

"I wait all year to be able to make this cake," she says of a banana and feijoa cake with lemon icing.

"They are my favourite fruit and the season is just too short."

One of the tricks she adopts for this cake is to replace boiled milk with unsweetened Greek-style yoghurt.

"That helps keep a cake even more moist."

When the cake comes out of the oven, it fills the kitchen with a wonderful aroma. The cake needs to be topped with a lemon icing to give it extra zing, although a cream cheese icing would also go well, she says.

This is the type of cake that can be served for dessert or go into the cake tin for school lunches. If you're dishing it up for guests, Robyn recommends adding a dollop of unsweetened creme fraiche on the side. "It's really creamy and offsets the sweetness of what you are serving it with."

In another scenario, feijoas are the condiment. Robyn has created a piquant salsa perfect for Mexican meals or to accompany skewers of white meat. In the writer's home kitchen, it was tested on guests at a banquet to mark Cinco de Mayo, a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride. There were no visitors from Mexico, just a bunch of people who love chilli-laden food, including a woman from Colombia.

Feijoas, also known as pineapple guava or guavasteen, originate from South America. They are said to come from the highlands of southern Brazil and parts of Colombia, Uruguay and Argentina.

You don't need a banquet to try this salsa. Witt hospitality guru Glen West, who has a new daughter called Chilli, says he'd serve it to guests as nibbles. Instead of the obligatory corn chip, he says the salsa would go well with pita bread that's been brushed with garlic and oil and baked until crisp.

Robyn serves her salsa with kebabs sticks of pan-fried marinated chicken thigh and says it does make a difference what part of the bird you use.

"Chicken thigh meat goes nice and sticky when you cook it. It's a nice meat to use for skewers."

The marinade is simple. To a ¼ cup of olive oil, she adds a small bunch of chopped coriander and a crushed clove of garlic and marinates the bit-sized pieces of chicken for a couple of hours before cooking. The kebabs can be cooked in a pan or under the grill.

Then we're on to a creamy dessert that's a speciality of another Witt chef tutor, Graeme Cawsey. Robyn says people may surprise themselves if they have a go at creating the baked custard treat.

"It's actually easy to make a creme brulee — it just takes a wee bit of time."

In this dessert, the feijoas have already been poached to alter the acid content of the fruit, which could break down the egg if used straight.

"It just adjusts that so the brulee doesn't turn to custard — pardon the pun," Robyn says.

People also need to take care when melting the brulee's sugar topping under the grill. When it begins to bubble and caramelise, it can burn quickly, so be vigilant.

And that's it for another year, so get feasting on feijoas.

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BANANA AND FEIJOA CAKE WITH LEMON ICING

Cake Batter Ingredients:

• 250g butter
• 1 cup sugar
• ½ cup brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 mashed bananas
• 5 feijoas, peeled and chopped
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3 Tbsp Greek-style yoghurt
• 2¼ cups self-raising flour
• ½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg

Icing Incredients:

• 100g butter, softened
• 2 cups icing sugar
• juice and finely grated zest of 1 lemon

Method:

• Preheat oven to 160°C. Grease a 24cm spring-form cake tin.
• Cream butter and sugars until pale. Add eggs and bananas and beat well.
• Gently mix in feijoas and baking soda dissolved in yoghurt.
• Fold in sifted flours and nutmeg. Pour mixture into prepared cake tin.
• Bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
• Remove from tin and leave to cool.
• Whisk all icing ingredients together to form a pale fluffy icing.
• Spread over cake with a spatula.

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FEIJOA SALSA



SALSA CELEBRATION: Marinated chicken kebabs
are topped with a chunky salsa starring feijoas.
— MARK DWYER/Taranaki Daily News.

Ingredients:

• ½ small red onion
• ½ an avocado, just ripe
• 3 vine-ripened tomatoes
• Small handful of coriander
• 3 feijoas
• Juice of half a lime
• 1 Tbsp Thai sweet chilli sauce

Method:

• Finely chop red onion and coriander. Dice the avocado and tomatoes.
• Toss in a bowl with lime and chilli sauce.
• Just before serving, peel and chop feijoas and gently stir through.
• Serve with marinated chicken kebabs or with a Mexican meal, like tacos.

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CREME BRULEE WITH POACHED FEIJOAS

Serves 6.

Ingredients for Poaching:

• 3 large feijoas (or 6 small)
• ¾ cup caster sugar
• Juice of one lemon
• 2 cups water

Ingredients for the Custard:

• 4 egg yolks
• 3 Tbsp caster sugar
• 500ml cream
• ¼ cup raw sugar or light brown sugar (for topping)

Method:

• Place 125g caster sugar, lemon juice and water in a pot and heat on stove, stirring with a wooden spoon until sugar is dissolved. Bring syrup to the boil.
• Peel feijoas, drop them into the just-boiled syrup and then turn off the pot. Let the feijoas sit in the syrup until cool.
• Drain the feijoas. If you have large fruit, cut in half. If you have smaller fruit, cut off one end. Place in 6 x 180ml ramekins, cut side up. If they won't stand up, slice round off bottom so they can.
• Preheat oven to 160°C.
• Whisk egg yolks and caster sugar.
• Pour cream into pot and heat. When almost boiling, whisk cream into egg and sugar mixture.
• Spoon mixture into ramekins and put them into a large, shallow roasting dish. Pour enough hot water into the roasting dish to come halfway up the ramekins.
• Bake for 1 hour until just set. Cool, then chill for 2 hours until completely set.
• An hour before serving, take brulee out of the fridge. To make the brulee topping, sprinkle custard with raw sugar or light brown sugar and melt under a hot grill until golden brown. Serve straight away.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/features/food-drink/2463426/In-season-Feijoas