The bilimbi fruits are coming ripe fast and furious off our one little tree. They are an unusual fruit - very tart and acidic like a pickle straight off the tree - with a delightfully crisp texture when raw. I have been adding them to fish and chicken dishes where they provide some bright flavor similar to a squeeze of line or lemon. Still, the bilimbis keep coming faster than we can eat them. I looked up lots of recipes on line, mostly from recipe blogs of Goan and Keralan Indians. The easiest recipe that would use the backlog of fruits is jam, so jam I made.
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| The harvest. |
Cut open, you can see the resemblance to carambola, aka starfruit. although the five lobes aren't ridged like starfruit.
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| Crispy, juice-filled flesh. |
All together the harvest yielded a little more than 6 cups of sliced fruit.
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| The 2 quart measuring cup is three-quarters full. The fruit smells of sliced green apples. |
The recipes I saw all called for pre-boiling the fruit and discarding the water before boiling with sugar and water and a cinnamon stick for about 25 minutes.
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| The little cinnamon stick added tons of flavor. |
I decided to use the immersion blender to make it smoother, but I did not strain it.
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| Four small jars of bilimbi jam. |
The jam is really tasty! It would go very well with a cheese plate or even served with lamb or duck. More of a condiment than a sandwich jam, although I would happily spread it on toast. In a few days, when we have some strong sunshine, I will try making dried, salted wedges that are used in lots of Indian cuisines.
In other news, Dennis is able to do more and more and is feeling very well - so yay! We had unusual late season cold front come through and the sea is frothing with energy from the strong winds that continue to blow. The rainfall from the cold front gave us a respite from watering the vegetable garden - so also yay!
