Ingredients

Guava

Other Names: Guyava, kuawa.

General Description: Guava (Psidium guajava) is a plum-sized tropical fruit with yellow, red, or purple-black skin and a sweet, highly aromatic flavor. Europeans first encountered guavas when they reached Haiti. Spanish and Portuguese sailors soon spread the tree and its name from its native lands in Central America and the West Indies to other regions. By the 17th century the guava was well established in India and Southeast Asia.

Guavas are generally the size of a fist and may be round or pear shaped, with rough or smooth greenish white, yellow, or red skin. The seed-filled flesh is yellow, bright pink, or red. The best varieties are soft when ripe and have a rind that softens to be fully edible. Large, pear-shaped white fruits are considered the best. Varieties differ widely in flavor and seediness (some have edible seeds). Their aroma is sweet and flowery, yet musky. The taste is sweet to sour with an unusual taste partly due to eugenol, the essential oil found also in cloves.

Season: Guavas are in season from June to August and from November to March.

Purchase: Choose tender fruits with some yellow color that have not yet begun to show spots. They should give to gentle pressure.

Avoid: Avoid spotted, mushy, or very green guavas.

Storage: Store at room temperature till soft. Refrigerate ripe fruit in a plastic or paper bag for up to 2 days.

Preparation:

1. Cut in half crosswise.
2. Scoop out the flesh with a spoon.

Serving Suggestions: Purée guava with lime juice, orange juice, and a little honey to make a marinade or glaze for poultry. Combine guava purée, pineapple juice, passion fruit purée, dark rum, sugar, lime juice, and a little grenadine (for color) and run in an ice-cream maker till frozen to make a mai tai sorbet. Add diced guava to fruit salads.

Flavor Affinities: Bananas, coconut, cream cheese, honey, lemon, lime, orange, passion fruit, pineapple, rum, strawberries, sugar.

from Quirk Books: www.quirkbooks.com