Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ya-ta Boy]

I'm in a baking mood. I found a recipe for persimmon bread. I bought a pack of 6 and brought them home. Then I read the recipe. I'm in trouble.

1) How do you know when a persimmon is ripe? Mine are pretty hard.

2) Should I refrigerate them till they ripen?

3) When they do get ripe, do I peel them or use the skin?

4) The recipe says to pulp them. Ummm...does that mean mash 'em with a potato masher?

5) Are there going to a lot of little seeds, one big one?


To satisfy your curiosity, I chose this recipe because it said the final product will be similar to pumpkin bread, which I love. And given that cans of pumpkin are hard to come by and �� are all over the place, I figured I'd give it a shot.

[tzechuk]

[tzechuk]

By the way, why would you need to buy tin pumpkin to make pumpkin bread... can't you just get a fresh pumpkin, cook it and then mash it up?

[kimchikowboy]

I don't know where you found your recipe, but I've made this a few times and it has come out great.
http://bread.allrecipes.com/az/PersimmonBread.asp
I've always used the soft persimmons, though.

Apples are easy to find here, and this one for apple bread is absolutely fantastic.
http://www.recipezaar.com/76946
I add some raisins, too.

[Ya-ta Boy]

Hey, thanks bunches for the info, tzechuk. Good answers to all my questions. I had no idea there were two kinds. I'll keep that in mind next fall when they are back in season.

Re: pumpkins. I'm intimidated by the idea of turning a pumpkin into mush. I don't have a clue how a pumpkin gets from a vine into a can. It sounds like a lot of work.

PS: If my bread turns out good, I'll owe you one. If it turns out like crap, I'll have someone to blame.

I share my banana bread with the teachers at school. They were so surprised that it tasted like bananas.

kimchikowboy: The persimmon bread recipe is the same one I found. That site is excellent for recipes. The part I like are the reviews from users. They often contain good ideas for alternatives and substitutions. My apple bread recipe calls for dark brown sugar. Have you tried the Pear Bread recipe at allrecipes? That's high on my list to try.

[mindmetoo]

I knew persimmons existed in theory but I've never seen one. I saw all these weird tomato things for sale when I first moved to Korea and thought they must be asian tomatoes. Asian pears. Chinese cabbage. Asian tomatoes made sense. Turned out it was a persimmon. So glad I noticed it smelled sweet before I made tomato sauce from it.

[tzechuk]

[tzechuk]

[elynnor]

...

[mindmetoo]

[Ya-ta Boy]

elynnor,

Sufferin' succotash! Thanks. It doesn't appear to be as hard as I imagined, unless you are playing an April Fool's joke on me. Years of needless suffering and depravation are at an end, thanks to you.

You answered all my questions but one: Roughly speaking, how many cups of mash?/pulp?/goo?....will come out of one pumpkin? Is there some sort of rule of thumb to go by....a 2,000 g pumpkin makes enough stuff to float my rubber duckie in the bathtub?

Eternally grateful,

Ya-ta Boy

The mysteries of foods starting with the letter 'P' are being answered beyond my wildest dreams.

[tzechuk]

Yeah... that sounds like a better way of mushing up pumpkin.. heehe... but for Letty, it was the best for us to boil it and add water to liquidise it.

we just need periwinkle to come, ya-ta boy - she is a wealth of knowledge as far as baking is concerned

[Rteacher]

Having the presence (or absence) of mind to google "recipes for persimmons" the first entry came up thus:
http://www.seasonalchef.com/persimmonrecipes.htm

Six Persimmon Recipes

Persimmon Cookies I
Persimmon Cookies II
Persimmon Chews
Persimmon Rice Pudding
Fuyu Bundt Cake
Persimmon Chutney

The first four of these recipes won't require you to take sides in the war between aficionados of the fuyu and devotees of the hachiya -- if you aren't already a partisan in that fight. They simply call for persimmon pulp, leaving it to you to decide which variety it comes from.

Fuyus, for the uninitiated, are crunchy like an apple while hachiyas are soft when they're ripe. So hachiyas arguably are better suited for recipes that call for pulp. However, by some accounts, fuyus can be softened up by leaving them in the freezer over night.

The cake recipe specifies use of the fuyu variety, which isn't too surprising since the recipe was published by the Califuyu, the California Fuyu Growers Association. Go to their Web site to learn more about fuyu persimmons. The chutney recipe calls for persimmons that can be blanched and diced. Ripe hachiyas would never stand up to such treatment so it's probably safe to assume that the recipe, from a senior citizens center in Tasmania, calls for fuyus...

[Ya-ta Boy]

[elynnor]

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