Purple Passion Fruit...And Yellow Too
This vine, native to the steamy Amazon, produces beautiful flowers and
sweet-tart fruit. It was named by the Spanish missionaries in South America who
saw the Passion (suffering) of Christ represented in its flowers. In Hawaii, the
purple passion fruit grow at higher altitudes than the yellow, but both kinds
are found wild on Hawaii's hiking trails. Most Hawaii passion fruit connoisseurs
prefer the yellow variety. Passion fruit's exotic flavor entices backyard
gardeners, but the vine is closely watched because it quickly climbs trees,
spreads, and becomes a pest.
The highly fragrant passion fruit is unmistakably tropical. About the size and
shape of a large egg, passion fruit has a tough shell. Inside the 1/4-inch
shell, juicy, yellow-orange pulp is filled with edible seeds about the size of
grape seeds. The famous Australian dessert, Pavlova, named for the Russian
ballerina, is customarily topped with passion fruit pulp including seeds.
Passion fruit tips
Don't try to substitute passion fruit juice for passion fruit pulp in recipes.
The juice is sweetened, diluted, and may contain other fruit. The results will
be disappointing. If you warm passion fruit pulp, the seeds can be removed with
a sieve. Most people, however, do not find the seeds objectionable. Passion
fruit pulp is good in marinade, sherbet, juice, salad dressing, and as dessert
topping for ice cream, cake, and cheesecake.
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