Passionfruit dessert delight

Press, 13 May 1981, Page 14

Passionfruit dessert delight

Alison Hoist’s

Food Facts

For a week last month 1 worked on the East Coast ol the United States,' promoting New Zealand lamb. One evening, in New York, we prepared a lamb dinner for a group of influential food writers and food editors. For dessert we served a fruit salad of sliced kiwi fruit, canned mandarin segments and canned lychees.

As a “talking point’’ we passed around a bowl of New Zealand passionfruit pulp. Early the next morning I was contacted by a food writer from a newspaper with the largest circulation of any paper in North America. She said she had heard that I could tell her all about the “newest fruit to hit New York,” and asked me to tell her all about our passionfruit. As :I talked to her I realised that I did not use passionfruit as much as I might. I resolved to work out some new recipes when I got home again. Ten days later, in Honolulu, en route to a newspaper interview, I was taken to ' have a traditional Hawaiian meal at a delightful, old established restaurant called •The Willow .Tree.” It was well worth the visit, and I finished an interesting meal with a Hawaiian passionfruit pie. This reminded me of my resolve to do more work with our own. passionfruit. The rich passionfruit cream pie I have just in-

vented is one of the nicest desserts I have ever made. It would be the perfect dessert for a dinner party, especially since it can be made and refrigerated eight to 24 hours before it is needed. I intend to freeze several half cup measures of passionfruit pulp, so I can make it when the fresh fruit is out of season. This pie makes

eight servings. Passionfruit Cream Pie Filling: ‘/i cup fresh passionfruit pulp 3 /4 cup sugar % cup water 1 lemon jelly 1 (250 g) carton cream cheese 1 cup cream, whipped Crust: 1 cup wine biscuit crumbs (about ’/z pkt biscuits, crumbled) 50 g butter Measure the passionfruit pulp, sugar and water into a medium sized saucepan and bring it to the boil. Add the jelly crystals, remove the pan from the heat and stir until crystals dissolve. If necessary warm the saucepan gently to dissolve all crystals, but do not heat more than necessary. Leave to cool to room temperature'. Soften the cream cheese slightly, by beating with a fork or wooden spoon in a mixing bowl. Pour about one quarter of the jelly mixture through a sieve into the

cream cheese, and beat with a rotary beater until smooth. Sieve remaining jelly mixture into the cream Cheese, pressing through all the pulp from around the seeds, but leaving the seeds themselves. Beat until smooth, then chill until quite cold, and partly set. Whip the cream until thick, and fold it into the partly set jelly. Pour into prepared crust, arid leave to set in the refrigerator. Cover with plastic film as sobn as filling is firm enough. To make crust, crush the biscuits, and soften the butter until very soft but not melted. Stir crumbs and butter together then press the mixture on to the bottom, or on to the sides and bottom, of a pie plate or loose bottomed cake tin about 23 cm (9 inches) in diameter. Decorate just before serving with stiffly whipped cream, piped through a forcing bag. If desired, serve extra passionfruit pulp

(sweetened or unsweetened) separately, so diners can pour a little over individual servings of the pie. This looks attractive, but is not necessary, since the flavour of the pie is quite definite. Note: The texture of this pie is creamy, and the mixture is just firm enough to cut in wedges. For a firmer pie, soak 1 tea- ' spoon gelatine in 1 tablespoon cold water for 2 to 3 minutes and add it to the boiling fruit with the jelly crystals. Variation: Serve. the filling (without extra gelatine) in small individual dishes instead of pouring it into a pie shell,, if desired. Used like this, the filling will make six rather than eight serv_ings. . . ~ ,