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!

Adventures in Simple Syrup

I recently stopped my subscription to Cooking Light Magazine, and found myself perusing the latest issue while at work during some down time on Night shift. Of course this issue is amazing, and I realized almost immediately that I wanted to buy it. There were articles on sweet tea and low salt cooking, which I have started paying attention to since my brother became hypertensive at the age of 23. It's ridiculous, he's in tip top shape, but for whatever reason his blood pressure is high- so since he lives with me we have been trying to cut the salt. Anyways, that's beside the point. Important factor here: Sweet Tea. I am a born and bred Virginia girl, sweet tea runs in my veins. I crave sweet tea more than any other beverage. This article on tea was great though, because it has recipes for varieties on sweet tea, like peach tea, mint lime sweet tea, lavender and cucumber-ginger simple syrups. Yum! My mom made the peach tea, and I decided to make mango sweet tea.

Online recently I'd been seeing a lot of recipes for sorbet on Tastespotting. I figured since I was going to be making simple syrup I may as well try out that as well. Another contributing factor is the fact that I picked up a bunch of limequats from the store, and wanted to use them in something. More on the limequats to come in future posts. I won't even go into detail about the limequat sorbet because it was G-ROSS, and tragically I know exactly why. The reason for the grossness is detailed in this awesomely fantabulous picture:

Clearly by awesomely fantabulous I mean highly mediocre, but oh well. According to my random online limequat sources you can eat them whole like kumquats. Thus, I put the whole fruit in the processor, and blitzed them all to smithereens. I put this in with the equal parts sugar and water simple syrup, steeped it, and froze it. A few hours later I tasted it, and it was so bitter it was completely inedible! If I made it again I would definitely just use the juice from the limequats, although that would take forever to squeeze all those little teeny fruits! Alas, at least the tea turned out well.

Mango Sweet Tea (adapted from Cooking Light)

2 mangos, chopped and mashed

Simple Syrup (1/4 C water and 3/4 C sugar brought to boil until sugar dissolves)

Add hot syrup to mango, cover, let stand 30 min. Strain through a sieve, discard solids. Add to brewed tea.

The beautiful brown of tea

Steep on, steep on.

Mango Syrup

Finished Product. Delicious mango tea. Perfect summery treat, so refreshing! The tea is sweet, and FULL of mango flavor! My mom made a batch of the peach tea- also to DIE for!! I could drink Sweet Tea by the gallon, and these flavored teas take my cravings up a notch!! DELICIOUS! I could drink the whole batch in one sitting. The mango especially is a truly refreshing and satisfying beverage, with food, or alone for a treat!
Check back soon for my adventures with limequat- the alien citrus!