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.
