5-Star Feijoa Recipes: Feijoa Strudel and Chia Feijoa Jam Recipe

Are you looking for Feijoa recipes? Here’s the best Feijoa strudel, feijoa jam and feijoa crumble recipe. Don’t know about feijoa? Don’t even know how to pronounce this exotic fruit? Then read on to find out more, including feijoa pronunciation.

I was so excited to open my box of spring veggies and fruit from Melissa’s Produce delivered to my door this week. As a travel writer, I love how the aroma of exotic fruits can take you places. During this time of no overseas travel, I’ve found that creating foods using unorthodox methods, as in the following feijoa recipes, helps me stretch my comfort zone and give me the same feeling of exploration and discovery that I’m missing.

I challenge you to try creating one of these recipes using rare fruit ingredients from Melissa’s Produce and see if it ‘takes you places,’ too!

When I opened the produce crate from Melissa’s, I found rare spring fruits and summer veggies, including feijoas, kiwano melons, passion fruit, fava beans, trimmed leeks, ready-to-cook artichokes, mini cucumbers and dragon fruit.

Those chicken egg-shaped green fruits in the image above might look like limes to the casual observer. However, I know you’re not a casual observer. ‘What are they?’ you ask. Those are feijoas, grown and harvested in New Zealand, and sourced by my friends at Melissa’s Produce. Since I’ve never seen or tasted one before, this article is all about the delicious, exotic fruit and feijoa recipes. But first…

What is feijoa fruit?

Like passion fruit, feijoa is native to the highlands of Brazil, Paraguay, and northern Argentina. It is part of the Myrtle scientific family, as are clove, guava and eucalyptus. The egg-shaped fruit is also known as pineapple guava or guavasteen, yet let it be known, it’s not truly guava.

Although feijoa is native to South American, New Zealand is currently the world’s top producer of the petite fruit. The feijoa plant is often used as an ornamental garden tree in New Zealand and subtropical zones worldwide, such as Florida.

Feijoa Pronunciation: How to Say Feijoa?

I always love it when people ask me how to pronounce foreign words. To me, it’s funny because I can’t correctly pronounce anything unless it is in American English. I can pronounce foreign words, but they’ll always be with my American English accentuation. As much as I try to replicate the proper accent, I don’t pretend to get it right. I find it equally amusing when other English speakers correct my intonation with an equally bad or even worse rendition of the foreign word. But let’s leave that pet peeve for another story… on with the feijoa pronunciation!

Evidentially New Zealanders did not adapt to the Portuguese pronunciation of feijoa because, in Kiwi country, it’s pronounced with the “J” sound, Fee-JOE-ah. In the US, we’ve adapted the Spanish pronunciation, Fay-YO-ah, or Fay-O-ah. But in Portuguese, the J is pronounced “Zh,” so it’s Fei-ZHO-ah. Here’s an entertaining commentary of feijoa pronunciation.

That leads us to…

How to Eat Feijoa

How to eat feijoa depends on where you get them and how many you have. If you live in New Zealand and have a feijoa tree in your backyard, you might pick one off the ground, twist off the tip of the oval fruit and suck out the sun-warmed fruity flesh. Or you could prepare the fruit by cutting it. Like this:

How to Cut Feijoa

The more common way of eating a feijoa is to cut it in half around its ‘equator’ and use a spoon to dollop out the flesh. When you cut it in half, it looks like a cucumber. The membrane around the edible seeds is gelatinous, but the flesh near the skin has the texture of pear. Can you see that tiny white seed in the image above? I think it’s so darling! Order your own darlings from Melissa’s Produce. Feijoas are in season now!

Feijoa How to Eat

As you can see from the feijoa recipes at the end of this article, chefs use feijoas in juice, smoothies, bread and desserts. In fact, you could take your favorite recipes that include bananas or apples and substitute feijoa pulp 1:1 for those to fruits. Please let us know how it goes when you substitute apples or bananas in your favorite recipes to come up with new feijoa dessert recipes.

That leads us to this question: ‘Can you eat feijoa skin?’ You can eat it, but it is the most bitter part of the fruit, so it’s usually thrown away. Mine went into my red wriggler compost.

So if you think feijoa is difficult to pronounce, just try to explain…

The Difficult-to-Describe Feijoa Taste

The flavor of my half a dozen feijoas was very subtle, complex and layered, almost like a fine wine. Sniffing the fruit before tasting, I detected a very delicate floral aroma. The taste of the pulp fruit was a balance of sweet and tart, still mild like Yuzu, the Asian citrus fruit. Some say it tastes like strawberry, guava or pineapple, but I did not get berry or great tropical tastes with mine.

I detected the flavor of cotton candy, and later, sweet grapes that were as difficult to distinguish as the taste of grass in a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

There is an exciting aftertaste that wine folk call finish. Some say the aftertaste of feijoa is like wintergreen or eucalyptus, but my fruit’s aftertaste was more like the smell of disinfectant or antiseptic. Maybe that’s why some report a “soapy aftertaste.” But since my mother deterred profanity by washing her children’s mouths out with soap, I know the taste of soap. And feijoa definitely does not taste like soap – or not the brand of soap my mother used. But since feijoas are part of the myrtle family, and the myrtle plant is used as an antiseptic, maybe that’s the taste I was picking up. Or the taste of the feijoa’s cousin, eucalyptus.

Many hybrids and varieties have their own unique tastes from what I’ve researched—some bitter, some sweet. (The bitter types are more ornamental and don’t make it to the commercial market.) So I’ll have to keep on sampling more feijoas and try more feijoa recipes to get a more well-rounded picture.

Feijoa where to buy

Feijoas are in season now and can be shipped to your door by Melissa’s Produce.

For Mother’s Day or any other occasion, Melissa’s provides convenient and memorable gift options. From produce boxes like I received to love-filled baskets, visit them HERE.

Feijoa Recipes including Feijoa Dessert Recipes

Pistachio Feijoa Strudel

This feijoa dessert recipe serves 4

INGREDIENTS
6 feijoas, large
1 tsp ground cardamom
2 tsp honey
½ tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp Water
Five sheets filo pastry
50 g Butter, melted
½ cup Pistachio nuts, coarsely chopped, plus 1Tbsp extra
½ cup powdered sugar
One lemon, juiced

INSTRUCTIONS
Peel and chop the feijoas. Put into a saucepan with cardamom, honey, vanilla and water. Cook gently for 10 minutes or until soft and pulpy. Spoon into a sieve and let cool.

Preheat oven to 390F/200C. Layout the filo pastry. Filo dries out quickly, so cover with a sheet of foil and then a damp tea towel while preparing.

Take one sheet, brush lightly with butter and sprinkle with pistachios. Cover with a second sheet and repeat until you reach the final sheet.

Spoon the feijoa along the end of the pastry, keeping an inch free on either side. Fold the edge over the feijoa mixture, then roll up.

Brush the edge with butter before sealing. Brush the top of the pastry with butter, then place on a baking tray and cook for 25 minutes or until golden and crispy.

Stir the icing sugar together with the lemon juice and drizzle over the cooled strudel before sprinkling with the remaining pistachios. Serve with whipped cream.

Feijoa Crumble Recipe

I simply took my tried and tested apple crumble recipe for this Feijoa Crumble recipe and substituted feijoa for the apples. Please tell me what you think!

INGREDIENTS

Filling
6 feijoas, large
1 Tbsp white flour
1/2 cup white sugar
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Topping
1 cup rolled oats/oatmeal (I use quick-cooking)
1 cup white flour
1 cup loosely-packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
Pinch of salt
To Serve
Vanilla ice cream

INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat oven to 350F/180C.
Cut feijoas in half, then scoop the flesh out of the skin. Compost or throw away the green skin.
Place feijoas in bowl. Sprinkle with sugar, cinnamon and flour, then sprinkle lemon juice. Toss, then spread evenly in a 1.5 quart/1.5 liter baking dish.

Mix topping ingredients in a bowl until clumps form. Spread over the feijoas, crumbling with fingers if needed.
Bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until golden brown. Remove and let stand for ten minutes before serving.
Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

15-Minute Chia Seed and Feijoa Jam

Chia seeds thicken this feijoa jam, not enormous amounts of sugar like conventional feijoa jam recipes. And better yet, no canning is required.

INGREDIENTS
2 cups fresh or frozen feijoa fruit
2 Tbsp chia seeds
1 Tbsp fresh-squeezed lemon juice
1-2 Tbsp honey or agave

INSTRUCTIONS
Cut feijoa fruit in half, and scoop out flesh using a teaspoon with a pointy tip.

In a small saucepan, heat feijoa fruit over medium-high heat, occasionally stirring, until the fruit begins to break down and bubble. Mash the fruit to your desired consistency with a spoon or potato masher.

Stir in chia seeds and lemon juice to combine. After tasting, if needed, stir in one or two tablespoons of honey.

Remove from heat and let cool for five minutes. (The feijoa jam will thicken as it cools.)

Give the jam one final stir. Then, serve immediately, transfer to a sealed container, refrigerate for up to one week, or freeze for up to three months.

I added a pinch of cardamom because I love that flavor with feijoa jam, but you could leave it out or add cinnamon or vanilla if you’re not a fan of cardamom.