15. Dezember 2022

Pawpaw jam cooking/ recipe

The recipe is from the book 'The Pocket Pawpaw Cookbook' by Sara Bir and only slightly modified to ingredients and European units of measurement available to me.

The jam is best with fruits of strong-tasting varieties such as Susquehanna. Gladly also a mix of fruits, even from non-grafted trees. Unfortunately, I waited a long time until I cooked with Pawpaw, because it always means that the tastes fade, but in this case that's not true! This creation tastes and smells more intense than conventional jam made from common fruits.

This allows a glass of 'sunshine' to be stored without artificial cooling.

Only the pulp of the Pawpawfruit is used, seeds and peels are not edible. When the fruits are ripe and how they can be processed quickly, I have described in a previous blog post from 22. October 2020.

Recipe for about 20 small glasses with 200g capacity (fits for a round in the common large cooking pot)

Ingredients:
2.5 kg Pawpaw fruit puree
1.25 kg sugar
225 ml lemon juice (if no lemons available also 10.1g citric acid mixed with water)
1 teaspoon salt
38 grams Agar Agar (vegetable gelling agent)

Preparation:
1. Slowly bring fruit puree, sugar, lemon juice and salt to a boil in saucepan, stirring!
2. Keep boiling and stirring steadily for 5 min.
3. Put the agar agar in a fine sieve and slowly pour into the saucepan (so that nothing clumps), cook for 1 min while stirring, turn down heat and fill into glasses.
4. Close glasses only with your fingertips, i.e. only with light pressure. Then put in boiling water bath for 10 min. When taking them out, check if they have closed due to the pressure, glasses that are not closed do not last as long and should be refrigerated and eaten first.

The jam has a shelf life of 2 years, opened at least 1 month

Click here for the shop for trees and seeds from this fantastic fruit

22. October 2020

Determine the ripeness of the pawpaw fruits, process them into fruit puree, cleanse the seeds and how to stratify pawpaw seeds
Asimina triloba: enjoyment ripe
Most varieties are green-ripe, so they cannot be distinguished from unripe fruits by their appearance. Some fruits take on a yellow colourbreak.

They are ripe when they fall from the tree (ensure a soft landing) and ripe for picking when they feel soft - feel the fruit very gently with your handplate(not the fingers) so as not to leave any bruises(picked fruit can be stored up to 1 month in the fridge, perfect temperature would be 1 °C).

A strong odor is also an indicator of ripe fruit.
The ripe fruits are very soft and should therefore not or hardly be stacked.

Eating pawpaw fruits and processing them into pure pulp:
Cut the fruit in the middle on any axis and carefully unscrew the fruit. Then remove the pulp with or without the seeds with a spoon, spit the seeds out again, they are not edible!
The peel is also not edible! It is bitter, so don't scrape too hard when spooning.

To process, cut the fruit in the middle on one of the longitudinal axes and remove the entire contents with a spoon, be careful that no small pieces of the peel come with you!
Massage the pulp / seed mass through a sieve, I use my compost sieve with a mesh size of 6mm, Neal Peterson thinks a deep-frying basket is best.
Mini seeds that have not become anything can come through the sieve, always keep your eyes open.
In the USA, small modified household machines such as a tomato press are also used (here in the KSU newsletter on page 5).

The fruit puree can be stored in the refrigerator for 24 hours.

The fruit puree can also be frozen (with a slight loss of taste), while pressing the air out of the freezer bags. If it is completely thawed, it turns brown(like we know it from apples). But there are some recipes where it is added frozen.

Cleaning the seeds:
Removing the last remaining pulp / seed skin from the seeds can be very time-consuming. If the seeds are stratified moist in the refrigerator, they have to be completely clean, otherwise the mold will do the job and can get into the seeds after some time. If the seeds are naturally sown directly outside, they do not have to be cleaned! There you can also simply sow rotten fruits (2.5 cm deep).

Option 1 barrel:
A tip from my colleague Andrej Krasna made it very easy for me! A high pressure cleaner is perfect(But also a drill with grinder stirrer goes). I take a sturdy 30 liter barrel, put the seeds with some water to swim in (otherwise the high pressure cleaner could damage the seed coat) and hold the pressure cleaner with the nozzle just above the water surface. When the barrel is almost full, I pour the contents into a vegetable box as a sieve. Repeat the process approx. 5 times until all seeds are completely clean.

Option 2 cage:

I have built a beautiful lattice cage with fine-meshed wire mesh, where the seeds can be cleaned with the high-pressure cleaner at the speed of light. It is even possible to start with whole fruits when they are already overripe.

Overwintering / storing / stratifying the pawpaw seeds:

I store the seeds directly from the harvest in autumn moist and cool, they are then ready to germinate in March.

Option 1 fridge:

The seeds can be stratified in a plastic bag in the refrigerator, the surface should always be moist, I don't seal the bag, I just fold the top so that air can be exchanged easily. Regularly check whether the seeds are moist, if a bit of white mold forms this is not a problem at first, cleaning again with water is sufficient.

Option 2 buried outside:
The easiest way is to overwinter (stratify) the seeds buried in a pot of sand or soil outside in a shady place.

You dont have this tree in your garden yet? Link to my plant and seed sale

The rule in normal small pots:

Example of Airpruned 1 year old pawpaw seedlings grown communally

In the US there are the Treepots and "DeepPots" shown here, narrow and very high.

Unfortunately, I am currently not aware of any German manufacturer or importer.

I know that commercial growers simply use P9 pots(9x9x9cm), until seedlings are 2 years old.

Who orders seeds can also do a direct sowing at the destination of the tree.