Sunday, May 29, 2011

Feijoa heaven

A very sweet colleague and fellow foodie P, recently left generous bag of freshly picked feijoas on my desk.  She had recently been introduced to a friend's "feijoa crumble" and hasn't stopped raving about it.

I'd never eaten a feijoa.  When I opened the bag and emptied them into a bowl, immediately an incredibly pungent and delicious smell arose - not fundamentally dissimilar to quince.


Ok so they don't look appealing.  Almost like an unripened fig.  Cutting them open, they don't look terribly appetising either.


Not to be disheartened, I pondered for a while on what to do with them.  I thought about P's crumble fixation, and entertained the idea of doing an apple/feijoa combo crumble.  But I need to do some baking to take into work tomorrow to celebrate some birthdays, and a crumble isn't really convenient for that purpose.  I decided on adapting my tried and tested friand recipe.  I sliced about 6 feijoas in half and scraped out the insides with a teaspoon, then mashing roughly in a bowl with the back of a fork.  I also decided to keep the raspberries and lemons in the recipe, adding some sliced almond to the top just before putting them in the oven.



Sen-SATIONAL.  I've said it before, I'll say it again:  I wish I could somehow record smell in this blog.  The aroma that wafted out of my oven when I took them out, was completely out-of-this-world-good.   I couldn't resist biting into a warm one - let me promise you, it was very, very good.  The feijoa made the friands super moist and the flavour was a bit like passionfruit in nature.  The raspberries and lemon were definitely worthwhile too - sweet feijoa against tartness works really well.

3 comments:

GS said...

Feijoas make expat kiwis like me incredibly homesick. It's a unique, perfumed aroma - I wish it could be bottled. I've only ever eaten them au natural. To be honest I've never had a glut of them to play with and I can't resist them as is. Sally Wise has some good ideas on what to cook with feijoas http://sallywise.com.au/blog/?p=194
BTW - they look much prettier if cut in half around the middle :)

K_Bom said...

Thanks AOF, will keep that resource handy for next time. Must admit I don't know anyone else who has a feijoa tree except P, and even then I think she only had a good harvest because of the strange weather!

Brilynn said...

I had my first feijoa last year when I was in New Zealand, they're so good!