Jam on

Well wasn't I just complaining that the araza season was over and the carambolas were at least a month away? Wrong, wrong, wrong. I was out picking cas and lovi-lovi yesterday and saw several carambolas lying on the ground - on the ground no less! Clearly those at the top of the tree are ripening faster than those I can see on the lower branches. I had only moments before been lamenting the fact that I really needed a few early carambolas to try out recipes before the main harvest began. And once again I got exactly what I asked for.

Carambolas are rather beautiful and strange. Native to Sri Lanka and the Moluccas they have spread all over Asia and now all tropical and subtropical regions. Starfruit in English because the fruit has 5 raised ridges running along its length (rarely 4 or 6 ridges), and when sliced the ridges and the seeds make a nice double 5 pointed star. The fruit tends to be sour, with a fairly detectable oxalic acid content. Sweet carambola do exist, but they're not really so sweet. The fruit is pale to rich yellow when ripe, has a crisp texture and gives a good amount of juice. People tend to use the fruit as a decoration, or juice it, it doesn't have much of a strong character by itself. But it makes a great salsa and can be used for relish and jam.

It's tricky getting carambola jam to set up. There is little if any natural pectin in the fruit and so it must be mixed with something else, hence my need to try out different ideas. I've made two types today, both very different and I think both good, though one certainly wins in presentation.

The jar on the left is a Carambola Butter with Lime and Black Pepper, the one on the right is a Carambola Lovi-Lovi Marmalade.

The butter was made by pureeing the fruit first then cooking up with sugar and the juice and flesh of a couple of limes (I boiled the rinds until tender then added to the cooking butter), I added a good teaspoon of our freshly ground black pepper as it was simmering. The butter has the fresh smell of carambola and the lime comes through strongly in the flavour; the pepper gives it a nice warm glow and spicy aftertaste.

4 cups pureed carambola (I compost the hardest part of the raised ridges and the ends, everything else goes into the blender)
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
juice, flesh and rind of 2 limes
big teaspoon ground black pepper

Prepare the rind of the limes by chopping finely and boiling in water for a good 10 minutes. Meanwhile combine other ingredients, bring to quick boil and simmer. Add in rinds and continue simmering for another 10 minutes or so until it thickens and a teaspoon of mix gels (see araza pictures, the butter won't set as well having a different consistency). Can in hot water bath.


The marmalade was much simpler, just a combination of chopped carambola and lovi-lovi in about a 3:1 ratio cooked with sugar, and a little squeeze of lime to bring out the flavours. It has a sweet tangy flavour and the texture and presentation are great.

1 1/2 lbs chopped carambola
1/2 lb lovi-lovi
between 1/2 and 3/4 lb brown sugar to taste
juice of 1/2 lime

mix ingredients, bring to boil and simmer until juice thickens. Test on spoon. This one takes a little longer to set up. Can appropriately!

bananas

The banana trees are producing after a lull, and I'm very happy to see them. We have several varieties here on the farm, from the praying hands to the thousand fingers to the red to the cuadrado: we have no cavendish bananas. Twenty minutes drive north will take you through acres and acres of dwarf cavendish bananas, lined up in Chiquita and Del Monte plantations. The trees are tied with wire to support them and each heavy racaeme is enclosed in a blue plastic bag impregnated with pesticides. There are two issues facing the monocultured cavendish: nematodes and leaf blight, and there's rising fears that the cavendish will soon succumb like its predecessor, the gross michelle. Monocultures have a bad habit of being short term: once a pest or problem takes hold it can rip through a plantation without anything to stop it. Biodiversity makes sense!!

No-one here buys plantation bananas, even without the label they are easy to spot: no bugs or flies circling them. The cavendish works well for the plantation owners because it is a smaller tree with a high yield and quick too. The banana can be picked very green and ships well. Great in terms of shelf-life and presentation for supermarkets, but it loses a lot in terms of flavour. Cavendish bananas just don't taste as good.

Here on the farm we leave the bananas on the trees for as long as we can, to just days before the fruit bats devour them. We cut the 'trunk' and leaves and pile them around the base where they will gradually melt down into compost. The racaeme we hang until it ripens, sometimes covering it with a gunny sack to keep those bats and 'possums off. We dry a lot of our bananas for later use in trail mixes, granola and cookies, and we share the rest with the dogs who really enjoy them.

We grow cuadrados which are a short, stocky, 4 sided banana which is not as sweet and can be used like a plantain. They contain small round black seeds and are better if they are boiled for 10 minutes or so to soften them. If they are very ripe they don't need to be cooked. I've been making chutney and 'marmalade' and they do really well giving a good banana flavour but maintaining some form and bite.

Banana and Cinnamon 'marmalade'

24oz bananas, chopped (firmer cuadrados are better boiled first)
16oz raw brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon (or to taste)

Heat sugar with a spoonful of water until dissolved, add bananas and cinnamon and simmer for 30 minutes or until a spoon will leave a clear trail on the bottom of the pot while stirring the mix. Can in sterilized glass jars and seal in a hot water bath.


Banana and Lime Chutney

6 cups chopped banana
grated rind from one lime
1 onion, chopped
2 cups raw brown sugar
1 cup cider vinegar (or banana vinegar if you have it!)
2 cloves garlic, or to taste
1/4 cup crystallized ginger
1/2 teaspoon fresh finely chopped hot chili, or to taste
1/2 teaspoon salt
good pinch black pepper
1 teaspoon mustard seeds

First boil sugar and vinegar, then add all other ingredients and simmer uncovered for at least 40 minutes until mixture is thickened and smells divine. Can in hot, steralized glass jars and seal in water bath. Chutney is great with cheese, chips, tortillas, Indian foods, straight out the jar.