Sort of… (warning: links contain pictures of mutant-looking agricultural products)
I stumbled across a display of Buddha’s Hand fruit yesterday at the grocery store. I’d heard of them before (on wikipedia) but had never thought to see one in the flesh. Frieda’s apparently is now marketing them and I couldn’t resist.
So I brought it home, where Moon Unit took one look and said “CTHULHU!!”. Then I made all the Thanksgiving guests smell it (a lovely aroma, actually). A couple of us tried slivers of it at the end of the day and thought it was… interesting.
So I googled how to candy the stuff, and that’s what I did with the rest of it tonight. As I chopped it up, I ran across the occasional pocket of actual flesh (vs rind/pith - the thing is quite literally all rind and pith with little to no flesh). The flesh tasted like a lemon, only not quite as sour.
Doesn’t make a whole lot - maybe a cupful. I want to give samples to the friends who saw the fruit, then not sure what to do with the rest. We might toss it in the fruitcake mix tomorrow, or just keep it as a weird thing to offer guests.
Anyway: do we need to refrigerate the candy? What about the leftover Cthulhu-infused syrup which the Instructables site said to keep. I guess we could stir that into tea, or into some fruit salad. In the meantime do we refrigerate that also? I wonder if it’ll “set up” (it was cooked to the soft thread stage).
I like to remind people that work with Buddha’s Hand in America that it behaves as an ingredient just like kumquats. As kumquats are at least a bitmore well known here. Pretty much use it in anything were you want a bright floral citron. It should stay syrupy if you went soft thread. If it’s in crystallization and a proper hypertonic proportion of sugar you shouldn’t have to worry about refrigeration.
It seems a tad sticky still, now (2ish hours after I drained it). When you say “in crystallization”, what do you mean? Should I toss it with sugar crystals?
The proportions of water/sugar were equal (3 cups each). I think my candy thermometer is off, as it didn’t read anything like 230-235 degrees; barely over 200 in fact even when things were boiling. So I used the ice water test to determine thread stage.
Huh - really? I never thought there was much nutrition in the rind (but what do I know???).
I added some of the candied rind to the mix I was making up for fruitcakes. I’m sure it’ll be overwhelmed by all the other flavors; still, it felt good to be adding something I made from scratch :).
Again on the sugar: right now it’s just glopped into a plastic container. Do I need to coat the tidbits with sugar for preservation or is that just a snacking thing?
The syrup is in the fridge. We stirred a bit of it into some glasses of sparkling wine last night (a very dry wine, we didn’t care for it plain) and it was quite nice. We really had to stir though - it was so dense it just settled to the bottom of the glass (we could actually see the layer of syrup at the bottom).