Loquat I can do!

Its late winter (early Spring really) here in Florida. I am not thrilled to be living here. (For many many reasons i will not get into right now) But one really nice thing about living here is food I have never had growing right in my back yard - literally.

This is a Loquat tree growing behind the house I live in. And it is in fruit right now. I had never heard of these fruits before but they are amazeballs delicious! Escpeially in salad dressings and chutney. However those are the only things i have made so far and both were amazing so i can fairly guess that the other ideas i have for these beauties will be awesome too!

So what is a Loquat?

Its a tree that was imported from asia as (primarily) an ornamental. The trees are self polinating and super resiliant so they are a very good little plant for the yards in the warmer temperate regions of the US. They are found in California too!

The fruit grows in little bunches and the fruits kind-of ripen at the same time so you can just pluck the whole bunch at once. The fruit doesn't give much of a fight when picking and the cluster will come free fairly easily.

Feel free to eat it raw, as is (after washing of course). No need to peel. However, beware the seeds. Each loquat can have up to 5 seeds though most have only 1 or 2. The edible flesh of the fruit is a fairly thin area around the large seeds.

The fruit is about as large as a strawberry. It ranges in color from a yellowy green to orange/peach to a blushed orange color as they ripen. Its better to pick them in the peach stage as the fruit flies love there things and waiting until they are really ripe means you might get some added protein when you bide into one - if you get my drift. Nasty! So get them while they are still a little under ripe. The skin is thin and has some light peach fuzz on it.

Flavor:
Sweet - like a peach or mango but with a slightly sour/tangy flavor like a grapefruit added.

Preparation...

I simply wash off my loquats and slice them lengthwise. Then I remove the pit. I save these because I found a recipe for making amaretto from them, so I'm totally going to try it!

Some of the webpages I came across while learning about this fruit warned of a strong smell associated with the fruit - something akin to bleach apparently. They warned that you might want to blanch the fruit before you handled it, or wear gloves so as to prevent your hands from smelling funny later. I did not find this to be true of the fruits I have but different cultivars likely have different scents.

Loquat, being a fruit and all, is a healthy thing to eat. It is high in fiber nearly 2 grams in a 1/2 cup. In that same 1/2 cup you get about 1/2 a gram of protein. They are also reasonably high in vitamin A.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loquat
Nutritiondata.com