Category Archives: Fruit

A Festive, Non-Alcoholic Way To Ring in the New Year

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Here's to the new year with a taste of something sweet and tart.

Is it really just a day away from 2010? Seriously?

I’m not necessarily ready for a new year to begin, not when it seems like this past one just zoomed by at warp speed before I could barely catch my breath.

If I could, I’d like to rewind it back to, say, maybe summer to do all the things I had hoped to do but never got around to doing. Things like read more books, cook even more fabulous new dishes, host a few more dinner parties at home, clean out my closet, organize my desk better, go for a hike, and write more letters on actual stationary to be mailed with a real stamp.

Since I can’t turn back time, I’ll do the next best thing — usher in 2010 with welcome arms, eager anticipation and boundless hopefulness.

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The Art of Hoshigaki

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Hoshigaki -- a persimmon dried in the traditional Japanese method.

As chef of Pizzeria Picco in Larkspur, Restaurant Picco in Larkspur and Bix in San Francisco, Chef Bruce Hill has a flair for creating stylish Italian and New American food.

He also has a thing for massaging fruit.

Before you raise your eyebrows too high at that, just know that it involves the ancient and quite labor-intensive Japanese tradition of preserving persimmons.

Chef Bruce Hill. (Photo courtesy of the chef)

Hill has been making the dried persimmons, known as hoshigaki, for the past four years, ever since he was inspired to give it a try by the lovely sight of all the bright orange persimmons at his local farmers market.

He doesn’t use the hoshigaki at his restaurants or sell them. He just makes them for fun to give to family and friends. And when he asked me if I would like to try some, I jumped at the chance.

Hill employs the traditional method of making them, which requires that the persimmons be peeled by hand, then hung by string for several weeks. During that time, he gives them regular massages to help break up the flesh and to help maintain their uniform shape. The rub-downs also help smooth the exterior to retard mold. After about six weeks of this pampering, a white powdery bloom naturally appears on the fruit, signaling that they’re ready to be enjoyed.

A younger version of the dried persimmon that still has its orange color.

He sent me two kinds of hoshigaki, each made of the Hachiya variety of persimmon, so that I could get an idea of the transformation process.

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A Profusion of Pears and Spices

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Autumn pears star in these cheesecake-like bars.

That’s just what you’ll find in these creamy-dreamy “Pear Cream Cheese Bars with Macadamia Nut Crust.”

They’re potent with ground ginger, cloves, cinnamon and coriander — a whole teaspoon of each. Whoa!

The fact that they’re so spice-heavy shouldn’t come as a surprise — not when the recipe comes from a cookbook with the name, “The Spice Kitchen, Everyday Cooking with Organic Spices” (Andrews McMeel) by Sara Engram and Katie Luber with Kimberly Toque. Engram and Luber have their own line of spices. And Toque was an assistant test kitchen chef at Lawry’s.

My friends who sampled the bars found the amount of spice overwhelming. I didn’t mind the pronounced flavor, except that it did make it very hard to actually taste the pears in these treats.

Next time, I think I would cut the amount of spice in half, which is how I’ve adapted the recipe below. Feel free to cut the spice amounts even more if you prefer.

The bars have a great interplay of textures — a crisp, nutty cookie foundation, then an almost cheesecake-like middle, followed by slices of fresh pears, and a quite sweet, thick layer of crunchy streusel on the very top. The flavor is reminiscent of a heady pear spice cake in a whole different guise.

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An Autumn Apple Treat

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A crust to bring tears to your eyes. And a filling with a secret ingredient.

We all know it’s what’s on the inside that really counts.

But boy, what’s on the outside sure can titillate, thrill and work us into a frenzy, too.

Oh, come on. You know I’m right.

Take this “Open-Faced Apple Galette with Quince Paste.”

What attracted me in the first place to this recipe from Flo Braker’s “Baking for All Occasions” (Chronicle Books) was what was inside. After the rectangular galette emerges from the oven with its filling of sliced apples, walnuts, sugar, cinnamon and allspice, it cools just until you won’t burn your fingertips. Then, you carefully slip tiny pieces of sweet, deep, rose-colored quince paste between the apple slices.

The quince paste, which you can pick up in the cheese section of any well-stocked grocery store, not only adds color, but a brighter, more complex autumn flavor to this wonderful rustic dessert. I loved the interplay between the sweet-tangy, tender apples (I used Pink Lady ones) and the sticky, gooey sugary quince with its subtle acidic note.

The recipe calls for Golden Delicious, but I used Pink Lady apples.

Yes, I loved the inside. But boy, let me tell you about the outside, too.

It’s a beaut.

Braker, who lives in Palo Alto and has been teaching baking for 35 years, sure knows how to put together a crust.

If there ever was such a thing as a perfect crust, this could be it. It’s very buttery, so crisp it shatters when a fork cuts through it, and so multi-layered flaky that my husband thought it nearly bordered being puff pastry’s more svelte cousin.

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