Feijoas make a golden, tart jelly

Press, 18 June 1986, Page 15

Feijoas make a golden, tart jelly

Alison Hoist’s

Food Facts

Feijoas have a shorter season than longer lasting kiwifruit or tamarillos. If you grow them you have to be poised and ready to cook with them (or eat them raw) within about a month of the first fruit falling. If you like the aromatic flavour of feijoas but don’t enjoy the rather rough texture of the fruit (similar to that of a stewed, under-ripe pear) you might consider making them into jelly. My feljoa jelly is light gold in colour (but the jelly may turn amber coloured if boiled for a long time) and has an interesting flavour as well as a marked tartness. If may be used with meat such as lamb, venison, turkey or pork, or teamed with cream cheese, cottage cheese, ricotta or quark, as a dessert or as a snack, or it may be used to glaze fruit tarts etc in the same way that red currant jelly or apricot jam may be. It is also good on toast, scones or pikelets. 1.25 kg sliced, unpeeled feijoas 1 litre water — 3 cups sugar Remove any blemishes or bad bits from the feijoas. Cut off the blossom end, and weigh after this trimming, if possible. Slice the unpeeled fruit into smm slices into the measured water in a jam pan or large urde saucepan. Boil briskly for 15 to 20 minutes, until the fruit is quite tender, then pour the fruit and liquid carefully through a sieve or colander into a bowl or another saucepan. If you are careful while pouring, and if the jelly is for family use, you may decid# not to strain it further.

I pour the stock through a small fine sieve, banging it and discarding the small amount of solids that block the sieve two or three times while I am pouring, but if you want perfectly clear jelly you can strain the stock through finely woven cloth. Do not squeeze the fruit, or the bag at any stage of the straining. Measure the amount of stock. You should have about 3 cups. Bring the juice back to the boil in a clean, large saucepan or the washed jam pan. Add % cup sugar for each cup of stock. Bring back to the boil, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Boil briskly, uncovered. Start testing for doneness about 5 minutes after adding the sugar. Put a tablespoonful on a clean dry saucer by an open window. After a minute, or when this cools, run you finger over the surface. If a definite skin forms, the jelly is ready to pour into glasses or bottles. For another test, watch the way the last drops fall from the spoon suspended above the saucepan. When the last drops fall as a sheet rather than as individual drops, the jelly is ready. The boiling time will probably be about 15 minutes, but may vary. If you want to turn the jelly onto a flat plate (as you turn a sandcastle out of a bucket) pour the hot mixure into glasses or ramekins which are wider at the top than the bottom, and are not too tall. Otherwise, use jars. Seal when cold with melted paraffin or candle wax, and top with cellophane seals. This receipe makes about 3 (25ft, ml) cups of jelly. £