In the US and other countries they're called pineapple guavas, and I hear they grow well in SoCal. Our last place actually had a feijoa hedge, and it would flower most beautifully and then the really hot weather would come and the tiny little fruit would drop along with my feijoa hopes for another season. I keep an eye out for them at farmers' markets ... so far nothing.
But then back in NZ last month, I had the great happiness of enjoying a classic NZ problem: more feijoas than I knew what to do with. And given that I was heading back to the feijoa-less desert of Nevada, how could I bring the taste through an agricultural inspection?
It occurred to me that guava paste being a thing, maybe pineapple guava paste could be too. I googled a few recipes and then did something like this:
(All measures are approximate and seen through the rose-tinted filter of memory.)
A bowlful of feijoas, washed but not peeled (about 6 cups?)
2 apples (I used windfall apples, use something sour if you don't have windfalls)
Juice of 1 - 2 lemons (I used some lemon syrup from the candied peel I was making)
Some water
Sugar, about 500 g
1/4 - 1/2 cup crystallised ginger
coffee sugar or other sugar if desired to finish
Chop the fruit into chunks and put it into a saucepan with water to prevent it sticking. There is no need to peel it first, and I did include the apple seeds and cores. Add the lemon juice and a few chunks of ginger. Use as little water as you can, because you'll just have to boil it off later. Bring to a boil and simmer until the fruit is soft enough to mash to a mush.
Press the fruit through a sieve, extracting as much pulp as possible. (Yeah, I know. There's no substitute for this. It's easiest if cooked soft and mashed well first.)
Put the pulp in a wide non-stick pan. If it's very thin, reduce it a bit before adding sugar. Stir in the sugar until dissolved. Now simmer the mixture for an hour or more, until stirring with a wooden spoon or spatula leaves a broad track that fills slowly with little or no free liquid. You can also test by dropping a little onto a plate. When ready, it will stay in a little heap rather than flattening out to a puddle, and it will not leak any juice. Stir regularly to prevent sticking.
Finely chop or slice the ginger. I removed about a third of the cooked paste to a smaller pan and added the ginger, to try and make a layer of more gingery paste in the middle. Next time I'd just stir it in when cooking was complete.
Estimate the volume - you'll want the block of paste to be at least 1 cm thick. Line a pan with non-stick paper. Turn the mixture into the pan and smooth the surface. When cold, cut into pieces as required and sprinkle the surface with sugar. (I used coffee crystals but I don't think that worked very well.) If the paste is extremely sticky, dry it in a hot water cupboard or a desert before wrapping up airtight to store.
If stored cool and dry, should keep for up to a year. If you have doubts about the dryness of the paste or the storage conditions, it will freeze fine.
Really good with cheese. I'm also looking forward to trying it instead of guava paste in recipes, for instance in meat glazes and baking.
