Friday, September 4, 2009

Limequat, the alien fruit!


My dear friend and chef blogger extraordinare Diana mentioned to me the appearance of Limequats at the grocery store and I was immediately enthrallled. A limequat? Kumquat is my favorite flavor of Bubble Tea, and I think the little fruits are quite tasty, so I figured limequat could bring a similar appeal. Limequats, according to Wikipedia, are "a citrus tree and the result of a cross between the lime and the kumquat. It is a member of citrofortunella." They are cute little baby lime looking things, only slightly bigger than my thumb. Further online research showed that they are used many times in the same contexts as kumquats, eaten raw, in jams or marmelades, and for a citrusy kick in sauces. So, naively I popped a whole limequat in my mouth. The explosion of citrus was overwhelming. Trying to play it cool in front of my brother I said "mmm, good," meanwhile my puckered face told the true story. A few more unsuccessful chomps and I spit it out into the trashcan. Very citrusy, sour, tasty, but so much bitter pith! I couldn't handle it. So I tried to figure out what I could do with it. I tried to make a sorbet of it in my post "Adventures in Simple Syrup", but unfortunately I put the whole fruit in the processor, and yes, the pith was overwhelming. I guess I should have guessed that, but oh well.
I was certainly intrigued with this petite burst of flavor, and I wanted to try some other way to highlight it in a recipe. Unfortunately, this all happened a couple weeks ago when it was hot outside and I'm just a delinquent blogger. It was so hot that the idea of a cool treat was appealing, so I tried again with the sorbet and made a kiwi limequat sorbet, using just the juice of the limequats. It's wonderfully sweet and sour, cool and refreshing. It's amazingly delicious. Best of all, its so easy, and doesn't require many dishes! If you want a cool treat, you should definitely try this one. It was all i could do not to eat the whole batch right then and there, but I ended up hoarding it for a couple weeks because I didn't want to eat it too fast. Although I don't love them as much as kumquats, I have to say, limequats are all right with me!
Aren't they cute?

Kiwi-Limequat Sorbet
Adapted from this recipe.
Put 9x11 inch glass pan into freezer. Make a simple sugar with 1 c sugar and 1 c water, let cool.
Peel and puree 6 kiwis in food processor. Stir puree and juice of 10 limequats into simple syrup. Take frozen dish out of freezer and pour mixture in. Put in freezer. Check on it every 45 min- 1 hr, stirring frozen edges back toward middle, to get it al frozen equally. After about 3 hours, it should be frozen to a scoopable consistency. Serve and enjoy!



And some more pictures of the limequats...I took SO many, I thought they were sooo cute!





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