Skip to main content

Feijoa zest meringues


In this post I mentioned using feijoa zest, I have use them before for this cordial, but I wanted to experiment more. Feijoa zest is bitter, that kind of bitter that makes you think that in large doses could be poison (possibly, anyone knows?) just like apricot kernels or fern fronds, but in small amounts, and occasionally, they feel safe (and I am still alive!). And they were good, possibly not as good as my favourite passion fruit meringues, but still good! 



First I put into a pot the zest of about 20 feijoas (you don't need all these, but there is another recipes coming out of this!) with 500 ml of water and 100 g of sugar, and I made a thin syrup. Then I drained about a tsp of zest and set it aside for the meringues. With the rest I made agar agar jelly (the next post). For the meringues I used 3 eggs white at room temperature and 150 g of sugar (normal white sugar). Once the egg whites and sugar were well beaten and stiff I added the zest and also one tbsp of cornflour to 'dry' the mixture (moisture from adding fruit or something moist to the meringue mixture can ruin meringues). I spooned the meringues on an oven tray and baked them at 50°C for about 4 hours. They were crunchy outside but moist inside. I tasted them first, for poison of course, and then I offered them at my Slow Food committee meeting. Nice to have foodies to experiment on!







Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to make Rose Turkish Delights (Lokum), and Sweet New Zealand

Rose Turkish Delights (Lokum) Before I start I would like to say that I don't have a sugar thermometer, essential if you are really into confectionery, and that I didn't use much sugar for these Turkish delights. Many recipes use much more sugar, and it is not that I wanted to make a low sugar treat here (it is still pretty sweet), it is just that making it at home really makes me realize how much sugar there is already in my diet, and if I can have something with a little less... well, why not! This method is 'home friendly' i.e. these can be made at home with very little effort and equipment, and the recipe comes from my book  Sweet As...  where I also have the recipe for lavender and orange blossom Turkish Delights. Ingredients 1 l water 300 g sugar 2 tbsp lemon juice 100 g cornflour 1 tbsp frozen raspberries 1 tbsp rose water icing sugar (very little) and cornflour (lots) to dust. In a pot put hal...

Silver beet Paneer, a variation of Palak Paneer

The other day I showed you my curry made with borage , ‘invented’ because I have tons of it in the garden! The other green-leaf crop that does well in Auckland is silver beet. My old plants (from last year!) got so tall that I started collecting only the little leaves from the stalks, and they look like spinach. One of my favourite Indian dishes is Palak Paneer (or Panir), spinach with panir cottage cheese, and this variation is made using my silver beet. I washed (many times!) the small silver beet leaves, and then I steamed them and drain them. In a heavy pot I heated 2 tbsp of vegetable oil (I used rice bran oil) and sautéed for 30 seconds: 1/2 tsp ground cumin 1/2 tsp ground coriander 1 tsp turmeric 1/3 tsp ground chili then I added 2 roughly chopped shallots and, after 3 minutes, a good pinch of salt and the cooked silver beet. I cooked everything on low for about 20 minutes (you may need to add just a little water if the silver beet is too dry) and then finely pureed the content ...

Crema Bruciata, or Crème brûlée, with nectarines, plums and cherries

The original recipes comes from my book Sweet As... ,  my own recipe which doesn't require steam baking in the oven and includes nectarine slices. Plum slices and cherries were also added here, and the result was delicious!  In Italy we also call this  crema bruciata , but  crème brûlée  is most commonly used now as it sounds sophisticated :-). To make the crème you will need one egg yolk for each 100ml of cream and 1 tbsp of sugar, for this recipes I used 5 egg yolks (thus 500ml cream and 5 tbsp of sugar) and I filled 8 ramekins, plus I had a little left to fill three miniature ones. Of course if you don't put any fruit on the bottom you will need more crème. It is up to you how much fruit you put in, generally I just line the bottom of the ramekins with 4-5 think slices, this time I think I overdid it (thus the leftover crème) sicne stone fruit season is not long in NZ, and I wanted to use more fruit than crème! Don't use watery fruit and remo...