Time for Vodquat!

My loquat tree finally has ripe fruit on it. I’ve been waiting for this for a year. We’ve fertilized the tree, given it lots of water, and our sickly tree has grown beautiful over the last 12 months and finally has a good harvest of loquats on it.

I love loquat fruit. When it’s ripe (golden orange fruit) it has a sweet, tropical flavor. If it is slightly under-ripe (dark yellow) it tastes like a sweet/tart candy. The fruit’s skin is a little fuzzy, like a peach, and it has a pit of one or two seeds. Don’t eat the seeds! They contain cyanide. Swallowing one or two is fine, but don’t go eating a handful. Do, however, save the seeds, because they have a particularly delicious use.

Vodquat.

Vodquat (my name for this loquat-seed liquor) is made by soaking the loquat seeds in vodka or grain alcohol. The strange thing about vodquat is that it doesn’t taste like loquats. It tastes like amaretto. The seeds have an amazing cherry aroma and impart that flavor to items it is cooked/soaked in.

I learned this recipe from Green Deane. He’s a forager in Florida, and I’ve learned a lot from him. (Check out his videos on YouTube!) Here’s Deane’s recipe for Loquat Grappa (his name for vodquat):

Soak one to two quarts of clean, whole Loquat seeds in a tight jar with a quart of vodka for one to six months. At the end of soaking time, drain the now flavored vodka and split it evenly between two fifth bottles. On the stove create sugar water by mixing equal parts of sugar and water. Heat until the sugar is dissolved. Top off each fifth with the sugar water. If you want it less sweet use less sugar, or more vodka.

I recommend waiting a month or two after finishing the vodquat with the sugar water before tasting. This will give it time to meld all the flavors together. And its true, the longer you soak the seeds, the more flavor your vodquat will have.

On a final note, vodquat makes a great gift. My family looks forward to getting a small bottle of home-made amaretto every year at Christmas. It’s a great cold weather treat, and it tastes all the better for having made it yourself. If you don’t have loquat trees on your property, keep an eye out for them while you are driving around town.

If you live in Florida, you are likely to drive by a tree or two no matter where you are going in the state. I have asked my friends to collect loquat for me from their trees and neighbors. Most people with loquat trees have more fruit than they know what to do with. So ask around, and I am sure you will be able to acquire enough loquat seeds to make plenty of vodquat for holiday gift-giving.

It’s Sauerkraut Season

 

Here in Northeast Florida, it is cabbage season. All around me are fields full of bright green, dark green, and purple cabbages. They are in such an abundance that I do not bother to grow any myself. I do, however, buy them from the local produce stand (The County Line) and make delicious, lacto-fermented Sauerkraut.

Making lacto-fermented Sauerkraut is super easy. Basically, you just let the cabbage and brine sit for a week. Here’s the details:

1. You will need a large container to pound the cabbage in, a container for fermenting (I’ll discuss this later), a potato masher, sea salt, spices (optional, but I like celery and caraway seed and black sesame seed).
2. Shred or thinly slice a couple of heads of cabbage. It can be any cabbage you like. I prefer to use the beautifully colored red cabbage and the crunchy savoy cabbage for my sauerkrauts.
3. As you add the sliced/shredded cabbage to the large container, lightly salt each layer and give it a good pounding with the potato masher.
4. Continue layering, salting (and spicing if using) and pounding until you run out of cabbage.                           
5. Let the cabbage sit in the container for several hours. Give it a good pounding every 15-30 minutes. You are looking for the cabbage to start expressing its water. You want to get as much water out of the cabbage as possible.
6. At the end of the day or when you feel you have a good brine started, begin to pack the wet cabbage into your pickling container. I use The Picklemeister glass fermentation jar. This is a great contraption. It has a gallon capacity  and a fitted airlock so you don’t have to worry about contamination. You can use a regular jar and cover it with cheese cloth, but you will need to remove the scum from the top of the surface every couple of days. With the Picklemeister, this is not necessary.
7. As you add the cabbage to your fermenter, make sure you mash it down very tightly. Hopefully, there will be enough natural brine to cover the top of the cabbage in the fermenter. If not, add a cup or two of saltwater solution (1tablespoon per 2 cups of water should be sufficient) to the cabbage.
8. Weigh the cabbage down so that it is fully covered by the brine. If you are using an air-locked fermenter, cover it and add the airlock now.
9. Next, you just wait. Give the cabbage a taste every day or so to track how the fermentation is going. Here in Florida, where it is fairly warm, it usually only takes 5-7 days to reach a fully mature sauerkraut.
10. Once you reach a taste that works for you, move the sauerkraut to the refrigerator. This will keep the bacteria from continuing to work and making the kraut too sour. As long as the cabbage remains under the brine the kraut will remain delicious and full of beneficial lactobacillus. You may also can the sauerkraut at this point to keep it shelf stable, but this will kill off the beneficial bacteria.

I hope you give this easy fermentation craft a try. It will turn even a hot dog into a mouthwatering meal!

The Problem with Kumquats

My neighbors have some beautiful kumquat trees. They are diminutive, with long, arching limbs that are laden with bright orange kumquats. They look so yummy, you just want to pop them in your mouth. But resist that temptation! These kumquats are so sour your pucker will pucker. Your eyes will bulge, and you will begin to drool. They are a Trojan horse for a citrus sour-bomb.

But this year, I decided to do something about our neighborhood kumquat problem. I would make these kumquats taste like candy. I would can them!

My favorite book on canning is Linda J. Amendt's "Blue Ribbon Preserves." She has three recipes for Kumquats in this book: Kumquat Marmalade, Kumquat Preserves, and Brandied Kumquats. I had so many kumquats, I decided to make all three!

I started at about four in the afternoon. I took my sack full of kumquats and carefully washed them and sorted them for the different recipes. The best looking, most ripe ones I would save for the brandied recipe.

Washed & Sorted Kumquats

Then I got the canner out, filled it with water, and started the long journey it would take to get it to boiling. I always put the canner on the heat a good 45 minutes before I am going to need to use it.

Canner and Tools

The amount of prep work canning recipes like these takes is monumental. I decided to tackle the Kumquat Preserves recipe first, since it had to sit over night to soak in the syrupy goodness.  I created a simple syrup and then tossed the kumquats in whole.

Kumquats Added to Simple Syrup

Then I increased the heat and got the fruit up to boiling.

Kumquats Boiling in Simple Syrup

They boiled for about ten minutes and then I took them off of the heat to start their over-night soaking. The scent in the house from the boiling kumquats was absolutely ambrosial. It smelled like I lived in a flowering kumquat grove. Wonderful!

Soaking Kumquats

The next recipe to tackle was the Kumquat Marmalade. This one had some serious prep work involved. I had to "supreme" six Valencia oranges (also donated by my neighbors). Supreme-ing is a huge pain in the ass, but it makes a superior marmalade. Basically, it means laboriously trimming away all of the white pith, and then cutting away all of the membranes that separate each segment of the fruit, and then chopping up the inside of each segment. It takes a long time to do this, but the flavor and texture of the marmalade will make it all worth it.

After I supremed the oranges, I had to thinly slice a couple of pounds of kumquats. This was a lot easier than the orange prep, but required concentration to make sure all of the seeds were removed.

Once the fruit is prepared, its ready for the pot. I added the kumquat slices, orange juice, water, and baking soda to an 8 quart pot and turned up the heat. I got it to a full boil and then reduced the heat to simmer the concoction for 10 minutes. Then I added the supremed orange bits, stirred and simmered for 10 more minutes.

Then I added a ridiculous amount of sugar (5 cups!) and a little butter and stirred it all up to make sure the sugar had fully dissolved. Brought it all back to a boil again so that I could add a pouch of pectin.

Boiling Kumquat Marmalade

And that's about it. After adding the pectin, I stirred the marmalade for a minute and then let it sit for 5 off of the heat before adding it to sterilized jars. Once the jars were filled and capped, I processed them in the canner for 10 minutes.

When it was all said and done, I had 7 jars of majestically golden kumquat marmalade.

Kumquat Marmalade

The third recipe I decided to try was the one for Brandied Kumquats. The only trouble was that I didn't have all of the ingredients. The recipe called for brandy and a vanilla bean. I had neither. Undaunted, I decided to substitute cognac for the brandy (my preference anyway), and vanilla extract for the vanilla bean.

First I blanched the kumquats. Then I made a simple syrup and added the vanilla. Once that syrup had simmered for 10 minutes I added the kumquats for 5 minutes. When that was up, I took the pot off of the heat and spooned the fruit (leaving the syrup) into the jars. It smelled wonderfully citrusy.

I put the syrup back on the heat and brought it to a boil for a minute. Then I took it off of the heat and added the cognac. I gave the mixture a quick stir and then ladled it over the fruit in the jars. The aroma alone was intoxicating. I processed the jars for 25 minutes.

Cognac Kumquats

Fortunately (you'll see why in a moment) I had more syrup than I had fruit. Once I had filled three pint jars, I had nearly a pint of cognac syrup left. The temptation was too great. I poured some of the hot liqueur into a coffee cup and had a sip. GLORIOUS! My new favorite winter beverage: hot kumquat cognac! Next time I make this I will intentionally increase the quantity of the syrup and can that separately.

Kumquat Cognac

This morning I retrieved the kumquats that had been soaking their syrup all night. It smelled lovely. I put it on the heat and got it up to a boil. Added a pouch of pectin and attempted to get all of the seeds out while I stirred the mixture for 60 second on the heat, and for another 5 minutes off of the heat. I got a lot of seeds, but not all. I think next time I will cut the kumquats in half and remove the seeds before they soak in their syrup all night.

Despite the seeds though, the crushed kumquats made a tantalizing preserve. I filled 6 jars and processed them for 10 minutes.

Kumquat Preserves

Canning is no small task. I worked from 4 in the afternoon to 10:30 at night without stopping. And then I spent another 45 minutes at it this morning. But despite the grueling hours, I think canning these kumquats was absolutely worth it. I can't wait to share the bounty!

Kumquat Harvest Canned