feijoa pasta: ingenious or heresy?
out-of-the-box ideas for cooking with the nation's favourite fruit
Feijoa fever is well and truly in session ~ and how blimmin’ glorious is it?!
Living down in Ōtepoti, it’s easy to be completely oblivious to feijoa season’s arrival (and having lived in Hawke’s Bay and Whangārei previously, where feijoas are left rotting on the roadside, it always feels slightly criminal to buy feijoas from the supermarket). In fact, if not for touring through the incredible George Street Orchard a couple of weeks back - where they are proving that feijoas can be grown in the cooler south! - I might have forgotten about them completely.
Fortunately, since that garden tour they’ve been at the forefront of my mind, and last weekend I was lucky enough to take a flying visit to Tāmaki Makaurau to hang out with some of the whānau. Unsurprisingly, my cuzzies have some prolific feijoa trees in their yard which were dropping like feijoa hot cakes. So I jumped at the opportunity to smuggle some into my carry-on baggage (thanks Shiv!!) and fly them south on the plane trip home, with only a few blemishes added along the way. Extra flavour, surely?!
Now I don’t know about you, but I feel like as a nation, while we absolutely adore this iconic fruit, when it comes to cooking with feijoas, I feel like we really underutilise their potential. Every year there’s always a few articles floating around web media with headlines like “what to do with a glut of feijoas” or “5 ways with feijoas”, and it feels to me like the same 3 or 4 recipes are just recycled through. You can count on there being a feijoa cake, perhaps a feijoa jam, a feijoa crumble of sorts, and I always find myself sitting there thinking ~ what about the savoury power of the feijoa. As much as I love a feijoa cake, there is something slightly basic bitch about it, and using feijoas in the kitchen should not be confined to baking. It seems to be this weird logic in our brains where because feijoas are a fruit, it’s an extra step to consider using them in a recipe that’s not sweet. I mean what a bout a feijoa salsa ~ which you should absolutely try!!
This year I have been rather stoked that the media seems to have decided to jazz up their feijoa content. It was great to see articles that spotlighted new and exciting ways to use feijoas, like this Feijoa Skin Sherbet recipe from Forest (Tāmaki vegetarian anti-food waste restaurant) owner/head chef Plabita Florence. If you’re looking for other ideas on how to use feijoa skins, this article also has some great recipes for making things like feijoa fizz and feijoa skin muffins.
So with me sitting at home, scratching my head about the lack of savoury feijoa inspiration floating around the web ~ for those who have my cookbook Good Vibes, there’s a recipe in there for an epic Feijoa dressing that is great tossed throw slaws and salad ~ I decided to try the unthinkable and create a feijoa pasta dish. No I’m not pulling your leg. Feijoa and pasta. Yes, I might be insane, I know.
But why the bloody hell not can’t we put feijoa in pasta sauce?! For me it actually makes a lot of sense. We love lemon in pasta ~ look no further than legendary home cook Anna Jones, with the recent release of her latest cookbook Easy Wins her most featured recipe from the new collection is her one-pan pasta al limone. And when you think about it, feijoa doesn’t fall too far from the lemon tree when we consider its flavour ~ plus it has a creamy quality when blended that lends itself excellently to citrus pairings.
So as strange as it may seem, in this week’s newsletter I have a one-pan feijoa pasta offering that is slightly out of the box, but I-kid-you-not worth giving a go if you have feijoas-a-plenty. Plus, I’m also sharing a more typical feijoa bake in the form of brown butter feijoa, lime & coconut friands, which are conveniently gluten-free and a versatile must-have to add to your repertoire. Be sure to also keep your eyes on next weekend’s inbox for more feijoa inspiration, primarily in the form of a brown sugar feijoa Victoria sponge for paid subscribers which is seriously worth becoming a paid subscriber for, just for this recipe alone.
In speaking of feijoas, I also think it’s important to highlight the sense of community and sharing of kai that feijoas naturally bring to us in Aotearoa. Whether it be passing feijoas over the fence to your neighbour, or selling them for cheap on the lean of your front yard fence, the sharing of feijoas are a love language unto themselves in our kiwi community. So if you do have a surplus, I challenge you to consider how you can utilise this bounty to connect with community, as one of the values of Eating Who I Want to Be. Feijoas are more than just a fruit in our nation’s culture, they are a vessel for community and belonging.
Cooking from Good Vibes: Earlier in the week I had an absolute hankering for crème brûlée (please tell me I’m not the only one who gets this!), plus I had some leftover homemade Caramelised white chocolate, so I made my Caramelised white chocolate, coconut & passionfruit crème brûlées from Good Vibes. It’s such a life hack to realise how simple crème brûlée actually is to make at home ~ fancy restaurants have been misleading us for far too long! While it’s not quite passionfruit season yet, frozen passionfruit can be found in the freezer section of most supermarkets ~ just defrost in the microwave and use like fresh passionfruit pulp.
I hope you all gain some feijoa-inspired deliciousness and novel enjoyment from creating the recipes below in this week’s addition. I want to stress how much I appreciate you all for supporting my recipe writing and my food-related passionate endeavours.
Much love,
Alby xx
One-pan feijoa, lime & chilli spaghetti
In my old age I’m becoming increasingly lazy. Even for something as simple as pasta, if there’s a way to use less dishes and through it all in one pan, I’m there. We’ve already talked plenty about this perhaps radical idea of using feijoas as the base of a pasta sauce, and the only way you’ll find out if it’s truly ingenious or heresy, is to make this recipe. Balanced with zingy lime, chilli, and coconut cream, it really is a deliciously easy spaghetti dish. Perfect for when there’s just two of you at home, or if you’re cooking for a friend ~ they’ll never believe the secret ingredient.
Hands-on Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 20 minutes
serves 2 as a main
Cost Estimate: $8 (about $4 per serve)
Ingredients
100g feijoa flesh (scooped from about 4-6 medium feijoas)
50ml olive oil
3 cloves garlic
1 green chilli (or ½ green chilli if less heat desired)
finely grated zest & juice of 1 lime
2 tsp Dijon mustard
¾ tsp sea salt
½ tsp cracked black pepper
200g spaghetti
100ml coconut cream
basil leaves, to serve
Method
Place the feijoa flesh, olive oil, garlic, chilli, lime zest, mustard, salt and black pepper in a tall container or bowl. Blitz with a stick blender until as smooth as possible (alternatively you can do this in a blender). Pour the feijoa sauce into a large high-sided frying pan. Pour in 700ml boiling water, stir to combine, place over high heat and bring to the boil. Once bubbling vigorously, add the spaghetti and cook for 8 minutes until just al dente and most of the cooking liquid has been absorbed. Towards the end of cooking, stir the spaghetti occasionally as the liquid evaporates to prevent it from sticking to the pan.
Add the juice of 1 lime and coconut cream, stir through the spaghetti and cook for a further 2 minutes, until the spaghetti is perfectly cooked and the sauce has emulsified and slightly thickened. Pile into bowls and serve warm, topped with fresh basil leaves and extra cracked black pepper.
Alby’s Advice:
Geijoas have seeds, so even though blitzing them will make a relatively smooth purée, as you eat the pasta if you notice the odd subtle crunch it is likely some of the feijoa seeds. But to me, texture is everything, so embrace it!
Feijoa, lime & coconut friands
Friands give me so much nostalgia. It was a favourite of my Dad’s to choose when visiting local cafes growing up, and as a result I’ve always had a soft spot for these light and moist tea-time treats. I like to brown the butter when making friands, as it gives a greater depth of flavour to the end result - just be sure to keep an eye on the butter carefully as you’re doing this, as it’s a fine line between brown and burnt. The butter will initially bubble, but once it quietens and is starting to foam, you know you’re in the browning phase.
Hands-on Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 45 minutes (+ cooling time)
makes 12 friands
Cost Estimate: $12.50 (or perhaps cheaper if you have easy access to feijoas)
Ingredients
170g butter, chopped into small cubes
75g desiccated coconut
175g ground almonds
175g icing sugar, plus extra for dusting
finely grated zest of 2 limes
1 tsp ground cardamom
½ tsp ground black pepper
¼ tsp sea salt
5 egg whites
4-6 feijoas, skin removed and flesh sliced into 5mm rounds
Lime glaze
75g icing sugar, sifted
1 tbsp lime juice
Method
Preheat the oven to 160°C fan-forced (or 180°C conventional). Grease the base and sides of a 12-hole silicone or regular muffin tin generously with melted butter. If using a regular muffin tin, depending on how non-stick this is, consider dusting the base and sides of each hole lightly with flour (use a gluten-free flour if wanting to keep these gluten-free) to prevent the friands from sticking.
First prepare the brown butter. Place the chopped butter in a heavy-based saucepan over medium heat. Melt the butter, then continue to heat, stirring regularly and swirling the pan, until it starts to foam, and the butter turns a deep golden brown, approx. 3-5 minutes (be careful here as it can rapidly go from brown to black). Strain the butter through a sieve into a bowl (to remove any browned solids). Set aside.
To make the friands, place the coconut in a small frying pan over medium heat. Gently toast the coconut for a few minutes, stirring occasionally, until golden and toasty. Transfer to a large bowl and leave to cool for a couple of minutes. To the coconut, add the ground almonds, icing sugar, lime zest, cardamom, black pepper and sea salt, whisking to combine. Make a well in the centre. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites with a fork until frothed up a little. Add the frothed egg whites and melted brown butter to the dry ingredients. Gently fold together until just incorporated - do not overmix. Spoon the friand batter evenly into the muffin holes so that they are about two-thirds full and gently smooth the tops with the back of a spoon. Place two slices of feijoa gently on top of each (do not press them in). Bake in the preheated oven for about 25 minutes, until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave to cool to room temperature before carefully removing from the tins.
For the lime glaze, in a bowl, mix together the icing sugar and lime juice to form a thick-yet-drizzle-able glaze. Drizzle the glaze evenly over each friand. Store at room temperature in an airtight container.
Alby’s Advice:
feel free to skip the glaze and just dust with icing (although I love the zinginess that the lime in the glaze brings)
if feijoas aren’t in season, top with a couple of slices of stone fruit or berries - these are also excellent options
I’ve opted for black pepper and cardamom for some spice, but you could sub these out for whichever spices you have on hand - ginger, cinnamon or star anise would also work wonderfully