Feijoa's can be a little divisive: people tend to either love or hate them in equal measure. It is no secret that Little Miss and I love them. In a world where you can buy any kind of imported fruit and vegetables at any time of year, there is a great joy in these completely seasonal, utterly New Zealand, green treats. I'm sure if they were available all year round they wouldn't have such an appeal. Anyway, as the season comes to an end, I'm doing my best to make the most of these fabulous fruit before they disappear again for another 10 months.
This recipe makes the most of another couple of seasonal treats, the walnut and the Granny Smith apple. I've put walnuts in the pastry to add texture and a nutty flavour, and the Granny Smiths make a great tart dessert apple.
Feijoa and Granny Smith Shortcake with Walnut Pastry.
for the pastry:
300g plain flour
200g butter
100g brown sugar
1/2 cup walnuts
4 tablespoons cold water
for the filling
3 Granny Smith apples
6 to 7 medium sized feijoas
the juice of half a lemon
3 tablepoons caster sugar
3 tablespoons raw sugar - for sprinkling on top of the shortcake
Using a kitchen whizz, blend the flour, butter and brown sugar until well mixed.
The mixture will resemble crumbs. Add the walnuts, and briefly blend - you don't want to cut the walnuts up too finely.
With the motor of the kitchen whizz running, add the water and blend until it starts to come away from the sides of the bowl - as shown.
This can be made by hand: mix the dry ingredients together, rub in the butter using your fingertips. Add the finely chopped walnuts, then blend together with the water.
Either method, don't overmix! Wrap the pastry in plastic food wrap and chill for at least half an hour. The pastry will keep quite happily in the fridge for a couple of days, so it is easily made in advance.
Preheat the oven to 190deg. C.
Line a medium sized baking dish with baking paper.
Roll the pastry out before preparing the fruit as both the feijoas and apples will brown once peeled.
Roll the pastry between two large sheets of plastic food wrap. You may need to use a couple of sheets overlapped. It should be about 5 to 6mm thick once rolled.
Take the plastic wrap from the top of the pastry and invert it into the lined tin. Ease it into the corners, then trim around the top of the tin. Cover and chill in the fridge while preparing the fruit.
Peel, quarter and slice the Granny Smiths.
Prepare them one at a time and immerse in a bowl of water with the lemon juice added. This stops them going brown.
Prepare the feijoas by cutting the tops and tails off, then parring the skin off each one.
Slice into rounds, then place in a small bowl with the caster sugar to prevent browning.
Arrange the apple slices and feijoa rounds onto the chilled pastry. It doesn't have to be super neat, just squeeze them all in. Spoon the left over feijoa sugar and juice over the apple slices.
Cut the pastry that was trimmed from the tin into strips and arrange them on top.
Sprinkle with the raw sugar crystals and bake for 40 minutes until the pastry is golden brown. The pastry needs to be baked quite brown to ensure the bottom is cooked and not soggy!
We took half the pie over to share with our neighbours as a thank you for lending us their trailer. It was getting late, so our Little Miss put a dress on over her pyjamas!
Anyone who has ever had anything to do with agriculture in general knows that farm labour functions on its stomach. Nothing can be better than a hearty meal and a cup of tea after a few hours of burning sun, dusty nor west wind and general hard slog.
Yesterday out of the blue we got the SOS from mother - she was sick and the shearers were crutching lambs at the farm for the day. For those that are not farm raised, crutching is, in the words of Little Miss 3, "trimming the wool off the lamb's bottoms." It was all hands on deck helping in the yards with keeping the sheep up and no one available to cook the meals. So in the car and off we went. LM3 was stoked with a surprise visit to Nana and Poppa's house.
With no time to spare and morning tea scheduled for 9.30am, a quick stop in at Darfield Bakery and Cafe supplied the morning tea. The food was very good indeed; the Afghan's actually tasted like homemade and the staff were very obliging in finding enough cold savouries for us. Another half hour in the car and we were there. While LM3 and I attended to the garden, chickens and ducks, The Chef cooked a lunch of vegetable soup, roast pork with new potatoes and apple and berry pie. With lunch out of the way it was my turn to come up with a nice afternoon tea.
Keen to use some of the fruit from the garden, as well as making an indulgent treat, I decided on using my Walnut Sweet Pastry as a base for a couple of different tarts.
Make the walnut pastry and leave to chill. Set the oven to 190 deg. C.
For the Gooseberry tarts: I washed, topped, tailed and sliced in half approximately 1 cup of gooseberries. Mix with 1 tablespoon of cornflour and 1/3 cup of sugar.
For the Caramel tarts: Combine 60g butter, 1 can of condensed milk and 1 tablespoon of golden syrup in a small saucepan. Stir over a low heat until the butter is melted and the mixture starts to thicken. It needs to be stirred constantly or it will catch on the bottom and burn. Set aside while rolling the pastry.
Roll the pastry out between 2 sheets of plastic wrap until about 4mm thick. Cut into circles, I used a fluted cutter, but a simple jar will do the same job. Place each one into the bottom of a muffin or tart pan. The mixture is quite delicate and needs to be handled gently, especially on a hot day. Press a little piece of cooking foil into each tart case and bake blind for 6-8 minutes. Take from the oven and remove the foil.
Fill half the tarts with the gooseberry mixture and the other half with the caramel. I popped a chocolate melt on top of some of the caramel ones. Don't overfill.
Bake for a further 8 minutes. The filling should have bubbled. Be careful, as you can see, a couple of extra minutes can leave them over baked! Leave to cool in the tin for about 10 minutes before attempting to remove by easing out with a knife.
I got short of time and had to leave the tarts in their tin to take up the hill to the wool shed. Everyone was happy with their afternoon tea, Nana was feeling better after a day in bed and LM3 had a lovely afternoon inspecting the livestock.
