Passion

As you avid followers of this blog will know, the passionfruit vine has been heaving with yellow-green globes (yes, this is a different, sweeter, smaller variety than than the more usually sighted purple types). We've had passionfruit ripple through vanilla ice cream, passionfruit with yoghurt, passionfruit spooned out of its skin standing at the kitchen sink, passionfruit comfort parcels for everyone who has dropped in over the last weeks, passionfruit-for-Calabrian-pastries exchanges with Charlie across the road, and still the fruit drops with the slightest breeze.

So I have hit the web in search of other things to do with passionfruits (yes, I know, I haven't done the pavlova yet). The two recipes below have firmed as favourites for this and coming seasons.

Passion Fruit Iced Tea
2litres          black tea*
2/3 cup        caster sugar
1/2 cup        lemon or lime juice
3/4 cup        orange juice
50ml            passionfruit pulp

When the tea is made, add in the sugar and dissolve well. Then add in the passionfruit pulp and the fruit juices. Store it in the fridge till cold and refreshing. You can add some mint leaves or slices of lemon and orange to each glass when you serve it.

*I make my own chai style black whole leaf mix as my everyday tea. Get a packet of good quality, large leaf tea. Add to it a couple of sticks of cinnamon, a teaspoonful of cloves, a dessertspoonful of fennel and coriander seeds, some slices of dried ginger, a handful of cardamoms. Mix well and store for use.

You can make your own dried ginger. Just get some fresh ginger root, slice it thin, leave it on some kitchen paper to dry.

Passionfruit Syllabub
A either a drink made of sweetened milk or cream curdled with wine or spirits,or a cold dessert with sweetened cream thickened with gelatin and beaten with wine, spirits, or fruit juice. The drink version was popular in Britain from the 16th to 19th century, says Alan Davidson in the Oxford Companion to Food. IT was the foam created by the curdling that was the point of the drink version and gradually became the main point of a syllabub in its dessert form. There is fascinating material on the origin and history of syllabubs at http://www.practicallyedible.com/edible.nsf/pages/syllabub. This version for a non-alcohol based syllabub I sourced and adapted from http://www.greenchronicle.com/valentines_recipes/passionfruit_syllabub.htm

Seriously delicious, this is also seriously rich.

250g          passionfruit pulp
2tbsp         lime or lemon juice, I prefer the lime
80g            icing sugar
500l           double/thickened cream, whipped till peaks form
2                egg whites beaten till stiff

Warm the passionfruit pulp in a saucepan on low heat for 2 -3 minutes. This helps the pulpy skin to separate from the seed. Now push the pulp through a sieve. Save some of the seeds for decorating the syllabub.

Add the lime or lemon juice to what is now passionfruit juice.

Add the icing sugar and stir till well dissolved.

Fold in the cream, and then the egg whites.

Now, at this point you can leave the syllabub till some of the whey (the liquid from the cream) separates out. Or you can put it into individual serving dishes straightaway and put it to cool in the fridge. If you do this, the whey will separate anyway over time and from a little pool at the bottom of the dish - and that's not a problem.

I serve it up in martini glasses, dotting the top of the syllabub with some of the reserved seeds. You could add a couple of leaves of spearmint, or sliced strawberries as garnish too.