Can you believe it!  Our stats went through the roof with New Sexy Gnome.  Too funny.  Anyway, back to the fruit and vegetables on the farm.  This one is interesting because I’ve written a bit on it here, so click if you want to read more:

• Barbados Gooseberry
• Another Edible Ornamental
• Ora Pro Nobis

I am re-discovering this plant again (since it is fruiting season right now) and it is fascinating.  I now recall years ago (it could have been about 8 years ago) when we first saw this plant in Spice Farms in Toledo and Gnome’s eagle eyes chanced upon a single fruit that had dried on the bush.  When we both tasted this we were absolutely amazed that it had such an intense flavour of apricot.  Anyway, we saved the single  seed that was in it.  Gnome planted this seed, babied it and it has turned into the huge monster that it is now.

The main point was that I forgot about the apricot taste because I subsequently pigeon-holed it as a “gooseberry” because of its name.  When it is picked fresh, it does have the texture and acidity of a gooseberry.  In the past, I have mixed it with other fruits to make jams and preserves and not really thought that the flavour was anything exciting or different.

However, this time I tried to make a “jam” out of the fruit by itself.  This is what I did:

• I picked 2lbs of the fruit and washed them removing any spiky bits.
• The fruits contain black seeds that are edible.  I felt that sifting the seeds out was too labour intensive so I opted to buzz the whole lot fruit in a blender.  The crushed seeds blend into the fruit.
• I added equal parts sugar to the fruit and  placed all of this in a stainless steel stock-pot and proceeded to make jam.

This is what happened:

• The jam did not set.  That means that the fruit does not have natural pectin.  I didn’t have any pectin so I couldn’t do anything about it so it ended up being a syrup (sauce) type of thing.
• When I tasted the cooked fruit with sugar, it tasted of nothing.  Quite disappointing…a great looking orangey fruit cooked with sugar.
• When cooked, the fruit takes on a gloopy (slimy) texture.  It’s not as bad as it sounds.
• I thought that the flavour was so bland that I chucked in  about 4 Tbsp of ground black pepper.

I canned the “sauce” in glass jars and had some on the same day to try it out.  I didn’t think much of it so I planned to re-dump the the sauce into the stainless steel pot and add some kick-ass habanero peepers to it.

Time passed (a week) and I didn’t do anything with the sauce.  We were having oatmeal (we ran out of honey) and decided to put some of this sauce on top.  Wow was it good!!  It just needed time to work the magic…synergise…what-ever but it now tastes like apricots.  The black pepper compliments the sauce very well.  I am very pleased with it!!  I now have 6 jars of Barbados Gooseberry and Black pepper sauce sitting proudly in my pantry.  This one is so good I will save it for special occasions.

Definitely worth picking:

Okay have a great weekend!!

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