Given that my modem went down last week I've had a little extra time to do some cooking. I also benefited from being given a huge amount of passionfruits from a friend. Passionfruits are pretty easy to grow and, generally, those who have a vine-or two- often end a with a glut of them. The beauty of passionfruits is that the pulp can be frozen- my mother does this frequently- and the only down side is that you end up with all these little one or two portion sized containers throughout your freezer. I have sinced learned that another way you can freeze them is whole. Although this definately has the disadvantage of taking up a lot of freezer space, I'm told that it prevents the pulp separating from the seeds- something that helps when you are spreading passionfruit across, or on top of, a dessert like pavlova or cheesecake.
But like many foods there is only so much passionfruit, or passionfruit topped desserts, that you can eat before you can no longer look at a passionfruit without cringing. This is when I go in search of ways to preserve passionfruits without taking up freezer space for the rest of the year.
Once again the book 'A Year in a Bottle' by Sally Wise has come to my rescue and it is from here that I draw these next two recipes:- Passionfruit Curd ( Passionfruit Butter) and Passionfruit Cordial. As I am not a huge jam or spread fan the cordial had more of an appeal to me so I attempted that first.
Passionfruit Cordial
1 Cup passionfruit pulp
1 Cup of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of citric acid- found in most supermarkets with the bi-carb soda
Combine ingredients in a saucepan and mix well. Slowly bring to just below boiling point, stirring to dissolve sugar. Allow to cool. Strain through a fine seive then pour into sterilised bottles. This keeps for up to 12 months.
To make the cordial or even home made fizzy drink just add either water, soda water or mineral water depending on your preference. This syrup is really sweet so using it to make your own fizzy drink means that you can control the sweetness. Sally Wise also suggests using the syrup over icecream or on desserts and I imagine it would work quite well.
The only down side to this recipe is that it takes a lot of passionfruits to make up 1 Cup of pulp- not an issue if you have a shipload of passionfruits as I did- and straining the mixture through a seive does take a bit of time- not a huge amount- but the syrup is thick and you may get impatient waiting for it to drip through the seive. But it is worth it. And how cool are you going to look if you can make your own fizzy drink??
Passionfruit Butter
pulp of 6-8 passionfruits
1 Cup of sugar
2 eggs
125g butter chopped
Combine ingredients in a saucepan and whisk over very low heat until mixture thickens. Do not allow to boil. Strain to remove the seeds if desired- I leave them in to save time and I like the idea of Passionfruit Butter actually looking like it has passionfruits in it. Pour in to sterilised jars, seal and then store in the fridge for up to three weeks.
As I said I am not much of a spread or jam girl but this is quite nice. It's very sweet so a jar will go a long way. It's also less complicated, less time consuming and less fiddly than making a jam. And, if you've grown the passionfruits yourself, you get the pleasure of turning your very own produce into product to share out amongst friends or give as gifts.
Both of these recipes are simple ways of using an excess of passionfruits without having a huge list of ingredients. Apart from the citric acid- which can be bought reasonably inexpensively and in small quantities at the supermarket- most people would have the rest of the ingredients already to hand. Just remember to sterilise your bottles and seal your jars to preserve your butter and cordial safely. for information on how to do this see my post on Chilli Marmalade.
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