What’s green, a kind of guava, grows on small trees and is native in South America and New Zealand?
Feijoas of course! One of the wonderful, quintessential parts of a long, hot Kiwi summer, these sweet, fresh, green little ovals of flavour are about to burst into supermarkets around the country, thanks to distributors T&G Fresh and Gisborne grower, Kaiaponi Farms.
Delicious, high in fibre and rich in vitamin C, all you need is a knife to slice them in half and a spoon to scoop out the delicious flesh. This year’s season is expected to run from early March to May thanks to the mild winter and hot summer in Gisborne.
Kaiaponi Farms prides itself on having a crop that is picked daily and sent to market overnight, ensuring that the fruit is as fresh as possible.
While most people enjoy eating feijoas just as they are, there are so many ways to use them. You can stew them, dehydrate them, bottle them in a syrup, bake them, make a salsa, use them in a chicken curry, some people even turn them into wine (or a Feijoa Daquiri!).
If you want to extend the brief feijoa season further, they freeze well for up to 12 months (just in time for next season!). Just peel with a potato peeler (so you maximise the fruit), slice into a bowl with lemon juice and water, soak for 10 minutes, drain, then sprinkle with 4 Tbsp of caster or brown sugar and package them up for the freezer.
Feijoas are best refrigerated and may need two or three days in the fruit bowl to ripen (Feijoas are ripe when they are slightly soft – this is when the jellied section in the middle is clear when cut).
The start of this year’s fresh harvest from Kaiaponi Farms is available very soon nationwide thanks to T&G Fresh. Look out for the distinctive K-Fruit brand.
