 |
| Delicious freshly picked passionfruit from the vine |
It's passionfruit season, and I am finding that at this time of the year there is a surplus of wonderful fresh produce needing to be preserved for future use. Only so much can be given away. Today I decided to use up some fragrant, purple passionfruit and how better to do it than by making Passionfruit Curd or Passionfruit Butter as my Mum's generation called it, and I still often do as well.
Go straight to my original Passionfruit Curd/Butter recipe here if you like.
Passionfruit is a subtropical fruit native to South America, specifically from Southern Brazil through Paraguay to Northern Argentina. However the Purple Passionfruit was growing well in coastal areas of Queensland before 1900. So many back yards in North Queensland have at least one passionfruit vine growing, scrambling up trees or over pergolas. It's a rush to pick them before the possums eat them, although many drop to the ground making harvesting very easy.
Here a few photos from my passionfruit cooking spree and I realised that it is almost four years to the day that I made a batch of this. It's a bumper passionfruit season. I've made Lemon Curd since though. Here is my Lemon Curd recipe if you have an excess of lemons. I used some very sweet passionfruit from our friend's vine for this batch of Passionfruit curd.
Our two passionfruit vines are fruiting however unfortunately the fruit is still quite sour. Mr. HRK has been feeding them with minerals such as Iron Chelate, Potassium Permanganate (Condy's Crystals), some Fish emulsion, and lots of love. However I was reading today that they love a lot of iron, and that feeding it leftover liver or an ox heart around the root base even will work. That sounds very carnivorous to me, and perhaps I should feed it a little liver and see if that does the trick. I'm worried what else the liver will attract to the garden though LOL. We don't need any wild animals picking up the scent and prowling around our backyard at night. Dear Friends, have you tried anything different like this in your gardens? This is our first Passionfruit crop on these vines, so perhaps the next one will be sweeter.
Let's Cook
This recipe makes 475 ml and is based on the wonderful Maggie Beer's recipe.
Ingredients:
10 large passionfruit
3 Free Range eggs
200g castor sugar
30 g butter
1/3 cup (80ml) lemon juice (I used Bush lemons)
Method:
Cut the passionfruit in half with a sharp, serrated knife and take out the pulp.
Beat the eggs well. Tip the eggs into a stainless steel saucepan, and add the passionfruit pulp, sugar, chopped butter and lemon juice.
Stir ingredients over a low heat until mixture comes to the boil, then keep at a simmer for 15 minutes, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon to ensure it doesn't curdle or burn or reduce down too much.
The mixture will thicken by the end of this cooking time, but will set properly and reach the required consistency when it cools.
Ladle the hot passionfruit butter into clean, warm sterilised jars and seal.
When opened, store the jars in the refrigerator.
Passionfruit curd or Lemon curd is absolutely delicious served in small pastry tartlets, as a filling for sponge cakes, or even as a topping for pavlova. Or just eaten on toast for breakfast.
I hope I have inspired you to make a batch, you will be very happy that you did.
Thanks for dropping by,
Warm wishes
Pauline
Go straight to my original Passionfruit Curd/Butter recipe here if you like.
Passionfruit is a subtropical fruit native to South America, specifically from Southern Brazil through Paraguay to Northern Argentina. However the Purple Passionfruit was growing well in coastal areas of Queensland before 1900. So many back yards in North Queensland have at least one passionfruit vine growing, scrambling up trees or over pergolas. It's a rush to pick them before the possums eat them, although many drop to the ground making harvesting very easy.
 |
Our two passionfruit vines are fruiting however unfortunately the fruit is still quite sour. Mr. HRK has been feeding them with minerals such as Iron Chelate, Potassium Permanganate (Condy's Crystals), some Fish emulsion, and lots of love. However I was reading today that they love a lot of iron, and that feeding it leftover liver or an ox heart around the root base even will work. That sounds very carnivorous to me, and perhaps I should feed it a little liver and see if that does the trick. I'm worried what else the liver will attract to the garden though LOL. We don't need any wild animals picking up the scent and prowling around our backyard at night. Dear Friends, have you tried anything different like this in your gardens? This is our first Passionfruit crop on these vines, so perhaps the next one will be sweeter.
 |
| Ingredients measured out and ready to cook |
This recipe makes 475 ml and is based on the wonderful Maggie Beer's recipe.
Ingredients:
10 large passionfruit
3 Free Range eggs
200g castor sugar
30 g butter
1/3 cup (80ml) lemon juice (I used Bush lemons)
Method:
Cut the passionfruit in half with a sharp, serrated knife and take out the pulp.
Beat the eggs well. Tip the eggs into a stainless steel saucepan, and add the passionfruit pulp, sugar, chopped butter and lemon juice.
Stir ingredients over a low heat until mixture comes to the boil, then keep at a simmer for 15 minutes, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon to ensure it doesn't curdle or burn or reduce down too much.
The mixture will thicken by the end of this cooking time, but will set properly and reach the required consistency when it cools.
Ladle the hot passionfruit butter into clean, warm sterilised jars and seal.
When opened, store the jars in the refrigerator.
Passionfruit curd or Lemon curd is absolutely delicious served in small pastry tartlets, as a filling for sponge cakes, or even as a topping for pavlova. Or just eaten on toast for breakfast.
I hope I have inspired you to make a batch, you will be very happy that you did.
Thanks for dropping by,
Pauline
We had some passionfruit a while back but the frosts have arrived since so it will be some time before we have any more. I have never made passionfruit curd...just lemon and mandarin curd.
ReplyDeleteWe are fortunate not to have to worry about frosts here. Mandarin curd sounds nice as well. Thanks Chel.
DeleteYou are so lucky to have passionfruit. Here in the very distant north of North America, I can't even find bottled or frozen passionfruit puree or juice or anything -- maybe rarely on the menu of a fancy restaurant. For me, it's a Hawaiian treat -- their name for it is lilikoi, which also seems like a beautiful name.
ReplyDeletebest... mae at maefood.blogspot.com
Oh dear, I thought the supermarkets stocked canned passionfruit everywhere, even though apparently the canned stuff isn't always high quality. I would send you some Mae if I could:) Lilikoi is a beautiful name, I've never been to Hawaii. Thanks, Pauline
DeletePauline - I saw this link in your market post and I have to make this curd! Like Mae (above) I could not find the canned or bottle juice anywhere - but eventually found it online. Now I have pure passionfruit juice just waiting to be used. About how much juice do your 10 passionfruit produce? I once had 7 passionfruit that were pretty dry and they only gave me 1/3 cup. I can't wait to try this!
ReplyDeleteDavid, A medium passionfruit contains approximately 2 tablespoons of pulp including the seeds and 1 tablespoon once the seeds have been removed. To be on the safe side, I would start with 10 tablespoons of juice for this recipe. I did read where sometimes the canned juice is too sweet, so I would taste it and add a little more lemon juice if necessary, or even substitute a little lemon juice for some juice. Or you could reduce the amount of sugar. It's about personal taste, but I think from what I have read about your cooking you prefer things not to be too sweet. Hope it goes well. there is plenty about this on the web too. take care. Best, Pauline
DeleteOh, Pauline - have a wonderful time in France! We are headed there next year - this year it is Morocco!
DeleteThank you for this counsel on the juice. My juice is 99.9% pure juice with a tiny bit of ascorbic acid added. I think it will be good to go as is! I will report back when I make it!