Plan for persimmons

A friend’s aunt recently gifted her an entire box of persimmons. She couldn’t eat them fast enough, so she, in turn, gave a bag of them to me.

Suddenly, I needed a persimmon plan.

Sure, I could’ve enjoyed them raw – in salads, salsas, smoothies, even simply sliced. But I felt like experimenting.

Roasting them sounded good. So did drizzling them with aged balsamic and serving them with whipped mascarpone. But in the end, I decided to make spiced sorbet and sweet persimmon spread. Both were inspired by several different online recipes – none of which I followed.

Raw persimmons are relatively small and mild, but carry a hint of spice. Their flavor is reminiscent of mangoes with undertones of apricot, cinnamon, cloves and tropical fruit.

They seem exotic, and their gorgeous burnt orange color seems to particularly lend itself to autumn. Persimmon season runs from October through February.

Before then, consider this Spiced Persimmon-Brown Sugar Butter on toast or a cheese platter or in yogurt, oatmeal, ice cream, even a grown-up grilled cheese sandwich. It could also be used to fill thumb-print or sandwich cookies.

I used virtually the same recipe to make the frozen dessert after finding a few online reviews of a three-ingredient persimmon sorbet – puree, simple syrup, lemon juice – that talked about how mild, maybe even too bland, it was. That recipe used fresh puree. No actual cooking was required, unless you made your own simple syrup.

I thought adding spice and citrus and cooking down the fruit might help enhance the flavor. (I ran this idea past pastry chef and sorbet-maker extraordinaire Taylor Siok at Luna while the persimmons were simmering. He offered encouragement and cautioned against over-sweetening.)

“If you are looking for a true fruit flavor, I wouldn’t recommend it,” he said. “But say you wanted to infuse some other flavors and wanted to simmer your puree, you can absolutely do that.

“Just remember to cool it after you cook it, and remember that you are concentrating the sugar when you cook it by process of evaporation, so you may have to use less simple syrup or add water to achieve the correct consistency.”

Now, I don’t have a digital refractometer to measure brix like Siok does at the restaurant. But my experiment passed the test with my tasters – thanks, friends – as well as my own palate.

I used the Persimmon-Brown Sugar Butter recipe as a base, but didn’t reduce it down as far as I did for the spread. Instead, I chilled the looser, spiced puree overnight, then spun it for about 20 minutes in my ice cream maker.

Two persimmon desserts with only one recipe sounds like a little bit of fall magic to me.

Persimmon-Brown Sugar Butter

9-10 ripe persimmons

2 cups brown sugar

1 cup pineapple-orange-guava juice

1 cup freshly squeezed orange juice

Juice of 1 lemon

Orange and lemon zest, as desired (optional)

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Pinch salt

Pinch cayenne (optional)

Wash, peel and hull the persimmons. Cut them into wedges.

In a large saucepan over medium-low heat, cook all ingredients until persimmons are tender, about 30 minutes. Stir occasionally to make sure the bottom doesn’t burn.

Working in batches, process mixture in until smooth in a blender or food processor. Return puree to saucepan and cook down over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until mixture reaches desired consistency.

Yield: about 3-4 cups, depending on how much you reduce it

Note: Don’t feel like peeling the persimmons? Wash and hull them, then throw them into the saucepan along with the other ingredients. After running the mixture through the blender, strain it through a fine-mesh sieve before returning it to the saucepan to reduce.