Did you ever have one of those lightbulb moments that opened up something to you that you had previously dismissed because it looked too hard? For me it was when I saw Lady W use a peeler to take off the skin of a butternut squash. I had no idea you could do that, and it really made me embrace the squash as a vegetable. Before it seemed like such an effort just to get the skin off and I lacked the enthusiasm.
Now tell me have you ever come across the Sharon, also known as a Kaki or Persimmon? Technically I should say that Sharon is actually a trade name for the produce that comes from Israel, one of the main producers. I didn’t know that until my local Greengrocer told me of this last weekend, but I’ve always known them as Sharon (I pronounce it Sha- ron and not Sharran, because that’s how I was introduced to it) so that’s what I shall continue to call them.
Back to the introductions. The Sharon tends to hit the fruit shelves right about this time of year: it is a fruit that bears a strong likeness to the tomato, only orange. Well, yellowy-orange to orangey-red. It feels a lot like a tomato in fact, although they are often more plum-tomato rather than tomato-tomato, if you know what I mean. They have a firm skin, which is edible, and a soft slightly jellyish centre. They don’t need peeling or coring and once you’ve taken the stem off, you can eat the whole thing.
The key thing with them is to make sure that they are ripe when you eat them: the stem (which is called a calyx, according to wikipedia) should ome out fairly easily once the fruit os ready, and they may feel almost as if they are too ripe. The skin will usually be darker and slightly more translucent than when you first bought them. And, as an added bonus, it turns out that they may help reduce heart attacks!
I love eating them through the winter as an alternative to apples and oranges: I’m a fan of soft-fruits so they really work for me. I’ve never tried cooking with them, so would be delighted if you have a recipe to share. Try one this week and let me know what you think.
Really? Great tip: I love roasting vegetables!
I’ll let you know something else about butternut squash, the easiest way to cook them is slice down middle with knife, scoop out seeds with ice cream scoop, drizzle with olive oil and roast for 25-30 minutes.
The skin is edible when cooked or you can scrape the flesh off very easily. I can’t be bothered even to use potato peeler on them!!