Tropical Teatime!

I'm feeling rather pleased with a jam break-through that I've just made. I've been experimenting with coconut preserves for a long while, and I've finally come up with something I actually like, that's not too sweet, but still good and coconutty, made with fresh coconut and coconut milk, it comes out a little bit like dulce de leche. To celebrate we made had a proper tropical afternoon tea - vanilla tea and coconut scones on the terrace, with Matotea holding court, how jolly civilized!!!!

My Incredible Edible Garden

OK, I must admit that I'm feeling rather smug about the garden at the moment - it's true that not everything I planted has grown, and quite a lot of precious seedlings haven't made it through the busy spell, or those not planted out still in my newspaper pots have succumbed to the destructive forces exerted by my merciless puppy and cat, who both think nothing of sitting plum on top of my plant pots or better still shredding the pots with abandon, scattering the contents where they will  (Grrrr!). 

That said I'm learning more every day about the culinary bounty that surrounds us.

I may have already mentioned my flower syrup, which is a real hit on crepes, but that's run of the mill now. I managed to make a first and very precious single jar of hibiscus jam (yes, you heard right hibiscus jam, using a couple of hibiscus varieties that I have got growing here), it is an amazing vibrant red color and has a very pleasant, albeit subtle flavor. 

Whatsmore, I've just discovered daylilies. 

We have a fabulous display of them every spring, it's a real visual treat, but they're also a treat for the palate I discover now - we tried deep fried flowers (after the success of the squash flowers), and they were pretty good I admit. 

Supposedly you can eat almost every part of the plant from the under ground tubers, young shoots to the blooms and buds (aparently an important ingredient in authentic sweet and sour soup - I'm up to try, we've got some dried mushrooms lying around, but sadly we can't get the tofu here to make it a really decent version)! 

Tamarinds galore!

 

It's tamarind season here and we're all addicted, Heimana in particular is a fan, it's one good way to convince her to go to grandmere's. These weird looking pods hold seeds coated in a sticky pulp that you can suck, it's the ultimate sweet and sour treat, albeit a little tricky to get at!

I've been enoying trying out tamarind jam and for Viri's birthday I did duck with tamarind sauce, a tahitian/chinese classic. There are still so many great things here to discover!

Flowers from my Garden

 

Gardenia tahitensis or 'tiare tahiti' is our national flower. The blooms have a delicate perfume and almost every household has at least one bush in the garden. The flowers are used for making leis, the flowers are also dried for making monoi. I like to use the flowers to make a tiare-motoi syrup, it's rather good on crepes.....

January

It's the end of the month and now that the New Caledonia family have gone back to Tahiti, for the end of their holidays, everything seems incredibly peaceful! Here we are back to just us, and the grandparents on skype for entertainement.

 

We even have a few days peace and quiet, before the next trick, the salon du tourisme in Tahiti over the St. Valentine weekend. I've just managed to get a huge shipment of jams and monois onto the boat for sale at the salon, so I hope it's going to go well. I've also been spending a lot of time experimenting with my soaps, I'm nearly there....but not quite!

 

Heimana is coming on a storm, she's full of babble, if only you could understand the half of it! She's also getting to be quite the little menace, pinching and hitting her big sister, every time she doesn't get her way, Matotea dissolves into tears - a strange role-reversal!! So she's growing up in some ways, but not all........I'd heard about kids that breastfed 'til they were four, but I didn't think I'd have one of 'em, however, more than18 months on, Heimana still hasn't kicked the habit and seems more than a little reluctant to. She hardly fits on my lap any more and frankly, after 18 months, I'm feeling a bit tired of the whole lark, not to say leached of nutrients! Roll on february......

Ten Reasons why I like living in Rurutu: #4

Passion-fruit. The vine is native to South America, but is grown broadly across the world, in Rurutu it grows a bit like a weed. It has attractive flowers and beautiful purple fruits with orange pulp.

It's now the season and, despite the recent cyclone, our vine at the back of the garden is laden with fruit. This year it's a bumper crop, I've already tried my hand at sorbet (to be recommended) and passion-fruit butter (I think it's an improvement on the jelly I made last year). But what I really need to go with the passion-fruit butter is cheesecake..... Alas, it's one of the many deserts that you just can't find here in Rurutu, due to a serious shortage of cream cheese!!!

Three quarters of a century!

Today was dad's 75th birthday - Congratulations Dad! Hats off to you - I only hope I'm as active as you in my old age.

Although he seemed a little reluctant to celebrate, I think this is a milestone worthy of note. We celebrated here by making soursop jam (a funny looking lumpy fruit with a marvelous sweet and sour taste and strange-looking pulpy white insides) - it's one of his favorite tropical jams, and we'll be sending a jar or two off very soon - a bit late for the big day, but I'm a big fan of the unbirthday present!

Maiore - part 2, cooking breadfruit

Here are some ideas for those of you interested in cooking with breadfruit:

The simplest and one of the best methods is to cook it over a camp-fire or BBQ, it gives it great flavor - otherwise cooking on the gas burner works well too:
Take one ripe breadfruit, they're usually best kept a day at least after picking, they develop more flavor that way. It should give slightly when you squeeze it, but not be soft to the touch.

When the breadfruit is well charred all over (about 20-30 minutes), then remove the skin with a sharpened stick, wrap it in a cloth or some leaves and beat it lightly with a stick to soften it up, then just eat it in chunks in place of bread or taro.

Tahitians like to eat this with tinned corned beef, that has been cooked over the heat with some tomato sauce (not ketchup) with onion and garlic, then doused in mitihue (a sauce made of the fermented pulp of young coconuts). It's super greasy and salty, but the taste and texture combination is excellent. If tinned corned beef doesn't sound so appetizing to you then bolognese works as a good substitue, particularly if you add a few lardons at the beginning.

Here are a few slightly more exotic ideas:
Breadfruit soup
This is a recipe based on a Caribbean version of vichyssoise, but we don't always have leeks here, so I often just use onion and I like to eat it hot with a pinch of chipotle pepper or paprika to give it a kick.

Ingredients:
1/4 breadfruit peeled cored and coarsely chopped up
2 tbsp butter
2 onions, diced
3 cloves of garlic crushed
1l chicken stock
salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste
500ml milk or half-cream

Fry onions and garlic in the butter over a low heat, for about 5 minutes until soft and translucent, add the stock and breadfruit, bring to the boil and simmer for about 20 mins, until the breadfruit is soft. Blend soup and add the milk and seasonings, to taste. Serve with a swirl of cream and sprinkle with finely chopped green onions or chives.

Breadfruit fritters (Jeegujje Podi)
Breadfruit makes for great fries, just substituting breadfruit for potato. Here is a slightly more complicated but delicious recipe adapted from a traditional dish from southern India.

Ingredients:
¼ firm Breadfruit
1 cup Plain flour
2 tbsp Corn Flour
1 tsp Cumin
1 tsp Paprika
1 tsp whole Mustard seed
pinch of Fenugreek
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup milk

Peel the bread fruit and remove the core and seeds. Slice the breadfruit into about 5mm thick slices and put them in water untill required. Sift the flour and other dry ingredients together, mix with the milk to make a thick paste. Dip dried breadfruit slices in a little bit of cornflour then turn in the batter and deep fry for 5 minutes, until golden brown. Drain on a paper towel and eat while still warm with a homemade chutney or ketchup!

Breadfruit jam

Ingredients:

1 breadfruit
500g brown sugar
1 lime juiced
1/2 vanilla pod

Boil the breadfruit in water for 10 minutes, then drain and put in a pan with all the other ingredients, add 1 cup of water and cook slowly for about 30 mins, it will get very thick and you may need to add a little more water to keep it from sticking at the bottom.
This is a recipe I found surfing the net, I just tried it out yesterday, and frankly the jury is still out on this idea - breadfruit is a bit like pumpkin, it has such a subtle flavour that if you're going to make jam with it you need to load it with spices, or it just tastes sugary. Maybe cardamon and cinnamon would be good. You could try using a very ripe breadfruit, or it might even benefit from being mixed with something else, it makes a super thick gluey paste so maybe it could be mixed with banana or even coconut (milk/grated) to make it a bit more interesting......

Confitures de la maison

I've mentioned it before, but I'm working on a small venture making and selling my own home-made jams, at the moment it's still at the first stages of cottage industry, but I'm getting a lot of positive feedback from our guests and am looking to ramp up production - last year we collected and cut up over 25kg of mango flesh, half of which is in the freezer for future use. I've developed some new recipes - my soursop jam is quite a hit, a recipe that I modified from a posting on blogspot, I might add! Now it's the start of the guava season, so Viriamu and the boys (Tuati and Iro are back here for the Easter hols) have been knocking themselves out collecting guavas. So, I've got to do some experimentation with recipes. Here's a guava jelly that I tried this week, delicious and what a lovely colour.

Incidentally I also tried making guava fool with the left over pulp, it was pretty good too I might add! Just substitute guava for goosberries in any fool recipe - though I prefer one that has a little custard in there instead of gelatin, for extra creaminess.