Post by BlackoutCreature on Oct 12, 2019 18:35:55 GMT -5
Ok, so recently I acquired several pounds of a fairly rare (at least in the US) tropical fruit called the Gamboge. It's also apparently called the Lemon Mangosteen, but I've found at least two other different fruits that also call themselves "Lemon Mangosteen", so I'm hesitant to use the term. Basically they're about the size of and look externally like yellow plums. They have one to three large seeds inside and their flesh has the texture of a peach or plum. As for taste, they do have a very very slight peach-like sweetness to them, but for the most part they are very sour and acidic and almost indistinguishable from a normal lemon.
When they first arrived I had a couple straight up, and they were fine. But again, they taste like lemons and you can only eat so many straight up lemons. I've been trying to find ways to work with them. Like I said, despite their taste they have the texture of something like a peach, so you can't really juice them, just mash them. The first thing I tried was throwing some of their mash into a blender with some ice and sugar, make like a lemonade smoothie. For some reason it just didn't work out. It just felt like I had to put way too much sugar into it to make it worthwhile.
My next experiment was more successful. I took a basic Key Lime Pie recipe, and just replaced the one cup of Key Lime juice it called for with one cup of the mashed fruit. It turned out really well. It was stiffer and less silky then a normal Key Lime Pie, more like if I had used unflavored gelatin as the binder instead of egg yolk, but it set well and tastes delicious.
But now I still have 3-4 lbs. of the Gamboge left, and no real idea what to do with it. I've tried to look up lemon cake and lemon bread recipes, but they mostly use lemon zest for the lemon flavoring, not lemon juice (which I can substitute mashed Gamboge for).
So does anybody have any recipes featuring lemon they think can work well for this? Not just baked goods, but if you have savory dishes like lemon chicken or beef I'm all ear. Or maybe any of you have experience with Gamboges and know something else I can do with it? Would I just be better off mashing the whole lot and freezing it until I can find something? Would that even work? I paid a lot of money for them so I really don't want them just to go bad.
When they first arrived I had a couple straight up, and they were fine. But again, they taste like lemons and you can only eat so many straight up lemons. I've been trying to find ways to work with them. Like I said, despite their taste they have the texture of something like a peach, so you can't really juice them, just mash them. The first thing I tried was throwing some of their mash into a blender with some ice and sugar, make like a lemonade smoothie. For some reason it just didn't work out. It just felt like I had to put way too much sugar into it to make it worthwhile.
My next experiment was more successful. I took a basic Key Lime Pie recipe, and just replaced the one cup of Key Lime juice it called for with one cup of the mashed fruit. It turned out really well. It was stiffer and less silky then a normal Key Lime Pie, more like if I had used unflavored gelatin as the binder instead of egg yolk, but it set well and tastes delicious.
But now I still have 3-4 lbs. of the Gamboge left, and no real idea what to do with it. I've tried to look up lemon cake and lemon bread recipes, but they mostly use lemon zest for the lemon flavoring, not lemon juice (which I can substitute mashed Gamboge for).
So does anybody have any recipes featuring lemon they think can work well for this? Not just baked goods, but if you have savory dishes like lemon chicken or beef I'm all ear. Or maybe any of you have experience with Gamboges and know something else I can do with it? Would I just be better off mashing the whole lot and freezing it until I can find something? Would that even work? I paid a lot of money for them so I really don't want them just to go bad.