Those feijoas
The plan for today was to deal with my mounting pile of feijoas. As usual, I was a bit late getting started: I find I've somehow established a routine whereby I toss and turn through the night and then sleep late into the morning. This does not bode well for going back to work next week.
It was 10am before I got up, showered and dressed, and did a couple of loads of laundry (which, now I think of it, are still on the line. Whoops). Finally, I settled down with a coffee to peruse feijoa recipes and make some decisions.
Beth (she who prompted this blog) had kindly sent me a variety of options. These were whittled down with regards to available ingredients and overall appeal. I was quite taken with an Annabel Langbein recipe called 'feijoa pan puff', had developed a certain curiosity about something called 'feijoa fizz' and was in two minds about making feijoa jam.
At first, the jam sounded like an excellent idea. It would use up a whole kg of feijoas, plus the recipe included the skins, so there was no need for peeling. But that convenient concept was actually putting me off. Last year around this time I tried stewing some feijoas skin on, with appalling results. On the other hand, jam contains a lot of sugar, that's got to help. Well, there's only one way to find out if it's any good.
The jam was quite simple to make, but it took a long time. The blitzed-up feijoas were to be simmered until they 'break down completely'. I don't know what that's supposed to look like, but after an hour or so they still looked much the same, so I figured it was time to move on. I added the sugar and lemon juice, and let that bubble away while I continued preparing jars and lids.
There were some very specific instructions about watching 'rolling boil' turn to 'blipping' but I couldn't really tell the difference. As far as I could see, mine skipped the rolling altogether and went straight to blipping. Either way, it readily reached setting point, so I'm not sure why you're supposed to bother.
Jam finished (oh and by the way, it does taste nice), I cleaned out the pot and put a chicken in it. This was not part of the feijoa endeavour; I'd seen Nadia Lim do chicken soup on her comfort cooking show yesterday and decided that might be the best use of a chicken I happened to have in the freezer. I'd defrosted it overnight with this in mind before I had any idea of using my stock pot for jam.
While the chicken was cooking, I turned back to the feijoas. I set enough aside for the 'pan puff' and started scooping out the rest for stewing. The skins I popped into jars set aside for 'feijoa fizz'. Once these were full, I topped them up with water, added some sugar, weighed down the tops with some small bowls and covered them over with muslin. These will be set aside for a few days, after which it will apparently produce something drinkable. We'll see.
By this time, the chicken was cooked; I stood shredding chicken while veges cooked and feijoas stewed. When I had all the ingredients back in the pot and the soup simmering away, I started preparing the last feijoas for the pan puff.
The batter was waiting in the fridge: I'd mixed it up during the jam blipping stage earlier in the day. All I had to do was cook sliced feijoa in butter and maple syrup, then pour in the batter in and place it in the oven. I'd had to reduce the size of the recipe, since my only oven-safe frypan is small, but also I'm only cooking for one! It was hard to know how many feijoas to use, though. Mine are very small, and I suspect Annabel Langbein was using much larger ones. I put in enough to cover the base of the pan, but I think that might have been too much.
The soup was done by this time, and (suddenly realising I never had any lunch) I ladelled myself out a bowl and sat down at the table to eat. I was keeping one eye on the oven; it's hard to know how much to reduce the cooking time when you halve a recipe. I lost count of how many times I put down my spoon and went over to peer in the oven. At one point, I convinced myself the pan puff was burning and took it out. It wasn't burning, just dark where caramelisation was happening around the edges. I put it back in, but the damage was done. It didn't rise any more after that.
Even though the pan puff came out slightly goopy in the centre, whether from too much feijoa moisture or simply undercooking, it was actually quite tasty. I might have another go sometime. If I actually got it cooked through it'd be delicious.
Of course, after carefully using an oven glove to take the pan out, I then grabbed it by the handle when serving myself a portion. And, after holding my hand under cold water for a few minutes, immediately grabbed the same handle in the same way again. This is why I usually avoid the kind of recipe where you put a handled pan in the oven.
So at the end of my kitchen toiling, I have 4 jars of jam, 2 jars of feijoa fizz in the making, a bowl of stewed fruit which will go nicely on my morning porridge, and (the remains of) a feijoa pan puff. Oh, and a big pot of chicken soup, plus some excess shredded chicken I'll use for something else. Not bad going for a single afternoon.
It was 10am before I got up, showered and dressed, and did a couple of loads of laundry (which, now I think of it, are still on the line. Whoops). Finally, I settled down with a coffee to peruse feijoa recipes and make some decisions.
Beth (she who prompted this blog) had kindly sent me a variety of options. These were whittled down with regards to available ingredients and overall appeal. I was quite taken with an Annabel Langbein recipe called 'feijoa pan puff', had developed a certain curiosity about something called 'feijoa fizz' and was in two minds about making feijoa jam.
At first, the jam sounded like an excellent idea. It would use up a whole kg of feijoas, plus the recipe included the skins, so there was no need for peeling. But that convenient concept was actually putting me off. Last year around this time I tried stewing some feijoas skin on, with appalling results. On the other hand, jam contains a lot of sugar, that's got to help. Well, there's only one way to find out if it's any good.
The jam was quite simple to make, but it took a long time. The blitzed-up feijoas were to be simmered until they 'break down completely'. I don't know what that's supposed to look like, but after an hour or so they still looked much the same, so I figured it was time to move on. I added the sugar and lemon juice, and let that bubble away while I continued preparing jars and lids.
There were some very specific instructions about watching 'rolling boil' turn to 'blipping' but I couldn't really tell the difference. As far as I could see, mine skipped the rolling altogether and went straight to blipping. Either way, it readily reached setting point, so I'm not sure why you're supposed to bother.
Jam finished (oh and by the way, it does taste nice), I cleaned out the pot and put a chicken in it. This was not part of the feijoa endeavour; I'd seen Nadia Lim do chicken soup on her comfort cooking show yesterday and decided that might be the best use of a chicken I happened to have in the freezer. I'd defrosted it overnight with this in mind before I had any idea of using my stock pot for jam.
While the chicken was cooking, I turned back to the feijoas. I set enough aside for the 'pan puff' and started scooping out the rest for stewing. The skins I popped into jars set aside for 'feijoa fizz'. Once these were full, I topped them up with water, added some sugar, weighed down the tops with some small bowls and covered them over with muslin. These will be set aside for a few days, after which it will apparently produce something drinkable. We'll see.
By this time, the chicken was cooked; I stood shredding chicken while veges cooked and feijoas stewed. When I had all the ingredients back in the pot and the soup simmering away, I started preparing the last feijoas for the pan puff.
The batter was waiting in the fridge: I'd mixed it up during the jam blipping stage earlier in the day. All I had to do was cook sliced feijoa in butter and maple syrup, then pour in the batter in and place it in the oven. I'd had to reduce the size of the recipe, since my only oven-safe frypan is small, but also I'm only cooking for one! It was hard to know how many feijoas to use, though. Mine are very small, and I suspect Annabel Langbein was using much larger ones. I put in enough to cover the base of the pan, but I think that might have been too much.
The soup was done by this time, and (suddenly realising I never had any lunch) I ladelled myself out a bowl and sat down at the table to eat. I was keeping one eye on the oven; it's hard to know how much to reduce the cooking time when you halve a recipe. I lost count of how many times I put down my spoon and went over to peer in the oven. At one point, I convinced myself the pan puff was burning and took it out. It wasn't burning, just dark where caramelisation was happening around the edges. I put it back in, but the damage was done. It didn't rise any more after that.
Even though the pan puff came out slightly goopy in the centre, whether from too much feijoa moisture or simply undercooking, it was actually quite tasty. I might have another go sometime. If I actually got it cooked through it'd be delicious.
Of course, after carefully using an oven glove to take the pan out, I then grabbed it by the handle when serving myself a portion. And, after holding my hand under cold water for a few minutes, immediately grabbed the same handle in the same way again. This is why I usually avoid the kind of recipe where you put a handled pan in the oven.
So at the end of my kitchen toiling, I have 4 jars of jam, 2 jars of feijoa fizz in the making, a bowl of stewed fruit which will go nicely on my morning porridge, and (the remains of) a feijoa pan puff. Oh, and a big pot of chicken soup, plus some excess shredded chicken I'll use for something else. Not bad going for a single afternoon.
Comments
Post a Comment