Guava sorbet

From Burden's Landing

Background

The Guavas

This is a very fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of recipe. My brother had bought something like eight guavas from a farmer who'd grown them in Fresno, CA, of all places. I was immediately suspicious, as, come on -- nobody thinks of Fresno as a tropical zone.

These were not pink-fleshed guavas. They had yellow-green skin with a creamy white flesh.

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We tried a couple of them, when both firm and soft, as folks at the farmer's market had differently opined on when the fruit was best to eat. Neither firm nor soft fruit was very tasty. The seeds were annoying, and fruit, while fragrant, was vaguely astringent (when firm) and somewhat mushy (when soft).

Poached Guavas

I looked online for ideas on what to do with the fruit and learned that poaching guava was a common preparation. Having recently poached quince with lemon halves, ginger, and vanilla bean, and not having liked the overly perfumed result, I decided to keep the poaching liquid for the guavas as simple as possible. The guavas were starting to go a bit bad, so I cut out large chunks of badly bruised fruit and ended up with, oh, about six whole guavas' worth. I sliced them into chunks and poached in a 1:1 simple syrup to which I added a healthy handful of dried orange zest.

The directions online were to poach the fruit until tender. However, because the fruit was already so soft and ripe, I decided to stop poaching after about a half hour. This left me with about 2.5 cups of guava, sitting in syrup, and about 1.5 cups of additional guava-scented syrup.

Sorbet

Ingredients

  • 2 limes (organic, if possible, or unsprayed & unwaxed)
  • 6-8 guavas, poached (see above)
  • citrus sugar
  • 2 Tbsps rum, light or dark


Rough Directions

For the sorbet, I pureed the poached fruit in a food processor with the extra syrup. This created a lovely thick puree. I grated two limes' worth of zest in the mixture and added two limes' worth of juice. For good measure, I added a couple tablespoons of citrus sugar and a couple of tablespoons of light rum.

I let this mixture chill for a couple days (one night would have sufficed) and poured it into the ice cream maker. Success! The lime zext and juice adds a bright pop and refreshing acidity (yay, homegrown limes). I also think the fact that I sweetened the sorbet mixture largely with a sugar syrup rather than granulated sugar prevented an icy texture once frozen. The rum serves the same purpose.