The fruit of passionfruit

January 31, 2010 - 9:06 PM by

Just in time for Tu B’shvat, I picked a huge bowlful of passionfruit from the vine in our yard, all perfectly brown, wrinkled and ready for eating. Such a sense of satisfaction, to have a bowl of fruit in your home, ripe for eating, and from your very own garden.

I had been kind of cursing the passionfruit, courtesy of my sister Sarah, who’s been warning me that the vine will take over all growth nearby, including the bougainvillea and mini peach tree. I had even considered cutting the whole thing down come spring, and putting in a new vine, something floral, scented, easy.

But then, Yossi, the gardener, came for one of his monthly-to-six-week visits. After ridding the garden of the vociferous winter weeds that I can’t keep up with these days and doing some general cleanup, he told me to come outside with a bowl and gather the passionfruit. I have to admit, I’ve been so out of touch with my garden that I wasn’t expecting much, a few, maybe several passionfruit for snacks.

Instead I ended up with a bumper crop of some 25 passionfruit, and good advice from Yossi to keep the vine, but just cut it back come spring.

Now I had to figure out what to do with the passionfruit, since there’s just so much spooning out of the yellow stuff that I could do, given that I’m pretty much the only one in the house who eats it. Enter Nigella Lawson, Brit foodie chef extraordinaire. I remembered seeing a recipe for passionfruit curd in “How To Be A Domestic Goddess,” and as I always aim for domestic goddess status, was excited to try it out.

I’m happy to say that the recipe is flawless and the results stupendous. As per Nigella’s suggestion, I smeared some on plain cake, a shortcake that I happened to have in the freezer. Truly luscious. And there really is no greater satisfaction than having a jar of passionfruit curd sitting in your fridge.

Recipe details

Great to slather over a thick slab of white bread for a morning breakfast.

Ingredients

* 11 Passionfruit
* 2 large eggs
* 2 large egg yolks
* 150 g caster sugar
* 100 g unsalted butter
# Put the seeded pulp of 10 of the passionfruit into a processor and blitz just to loosen the seeds. Strain into a jug or bowl.
# Beat the eggs, egg yolks and sugar together.
# Melt the butter over a low heat in a heavy-based pan, and when melted stir in the egg mixture and the passionfruit juice, and keep cooking gently, stirring constantly, until thickened.
# Off the heat, whisk in the pulp – seeds and all – of the remaining passionfruit, let cool slightly, then pour into a clean jar. Keep the jar sealed in the fridge.

Tags: , , • Category: Food, General, Holidays, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life 

Comments

7 Comments on The fruit of passionfruit

  1. Nicole on Mon, Feb 1st 2010 9:04 AM

    2. I freeze the passionfruit pulp in icecube trays. you can then mix it in to fruit salad later in the year, or use it for baking, etc.

  2. jessica on Mon, Feb 1st 2010 10:27 AM

    3. excellent idea. although i am thinking about passionfruit ice cream for my final batch.

  3. Nicky on Mon, Feb 1st 2010 2:17 PM

    4. Saw this recipe in her book and have always wondered whether it was worth making it. Will give it a try.
    Aside from eating our passionfruit straight from the skin, or dribbling it over cheesecake, we tend to use them a lot for passionfruit margharitas. Great taste, and we can almost convince ourselves that the drink is healthy.

  4. Rodger on Tue, Feb 2nd 2010 2:59 AM

    5. Passionfruit is a vigours grower and lives roughly for 5 years, but seeds from the fruit will grow if planted in the spring. Fish meal is a great fertilizer for passionfruit and for those who live by the sea, sea weed or the odd fish body buried at the roots will boost growth and a promise of abundant supply of fruit.

  5. Nature Girl, April Lorier on Thu, Feb 4th 2010 1:45 AM

    6. I live in California, and I have never tasted passion fruit. But you make it sound delicious! What other fruit does it taste like? It looks like plums.

  6. Jessica on Sun, Feb 7th 2010 8:17 PM

    7. What other fruit? Nothing else that I can think of. But it feels very tropical!

  7. Nate @ House of Annie on Tue, Feb 9th 2010 6:42 AM

    8. Since you are using homegrown ingredients, would you like to enter this post in our Grow Your Own roundup this month? Full Details at

    http://chezannies.blogspot.com/2010/02/announcing-grow-your-own-39.html

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