A Gift of Fuyu Persimmons

A friend has a Fuyu Persimmon tree growing very close to her porch - she just has to reach out to harvest this beautiful oriental fruit. We were recently the recipients of some of the fall harvest. This large bag of fresh Fuyu Persimmons offered the opportunity to discover a new fruit, and required a search on the internet to discover how to process and utilize this special gift. The fruit can be eaten directly out of hand, like an apple, but I decided to cook them down to create a pulp to be used in cooking. The directions found on the internet vary slightly, some suggest cooking them down, others simply toss them in a heavy duty processor to create the puree.

I opted for the cooked process, which involved removing the top portion of the fruit and chunking the remaining part. I tossed the chunks into a large pot with about a cup of water, and steamed them down, much like you would applesauce. No sugar necessary as they have natural sweetness already.

Once the fruit was soft, I pureed the mixture, essentially turning it into a sauce. I tried a small bowl of it, topped with cinnamon, and decided it had a flavor very similar to warm and spicy pumpkin.

 This Persimmon bread was my first baked good attempt. Laden with walnuts and raisins, it's a moist and flavorful tea bread. The recipe can be found here at Natasha's Kitchen. It is quite tasty and pairs perfectly with a malty Assam tea. A few additional bags of the pureed persimmon are in the freezer to be turned into something else equally as delicious.

 The Essential Herbal Blog has a range of interesting posts about persimmons, both the native Persimmon and the oriental Fuyu persimmon. Visit their blog, and enter 'persimmons' in the search box to find additional informative posts.