Persimmons

Until today, I had never tasted a persimmon. Boy, was I missing out. Steve's dad has a Fuyu persimmon tree in his front yard and says that he counted last year and he picked 4,000 persimmons. The other day, they gave me a bunch of them and I was intrigued. I ate one of them raw, sliced another into a salad with watercress and goat cheese, and then made a batch of persimmon preserves.

I adapted this recipe for pear butter from Simply Recipes. I had a few less persimmons so I used less sugar (and a little agave) and I used some anise seeds in a tea strainer instead of star anise. I don't have a food mill or chinois but because I peeled the persimmons first, I just blended the mixture with my hand blender before adding the sugar.

The end result was good - definitely more of a persimmon butter than a jam and while not chunky, the flavors tasted sort of like a chutney to me. I like ginger a lot and that's the flavor that dominates but next time I'd probably reduce the ginger a little bit.

Stephanie is working on some persimmon desserts so maybe she'll share her recipes on the blog when she finds one she likes!

Thanks to Steve, Steph & Nono for the persimmons. Thanks to Elise for the recipe.