Guava Paste, You Shut Up!
Well, I’m disgusted. So, I made this raspberry pie, see. It’s a nice enough raspberry pie, it’s been a recent favorite around here after a long spat of cherry pie requests. I realize we’re right smack in the middle of fresh fruit season, but two bags of frozen raspberries runs me less than $5 and when it’s too hot out to do anything but slap together a crust as fast as you can before the whole thing starts melting, it’s genius.
So there I am, making this pie, when I remember that Anger Burger reader Jason sent me a packet of guava paste. Which is well and good, lord knows I love a fruit paste, but I was having trouble deciding what to do with the stuff. It’s very dense and heavy, and while I wanted to make a guava cake, I knew I would have to cook it down with some water or guava juice to make it work in cake. And you know, that’s a lot of work for someone who recently bought nicer jim-jam bottoms so that she felt less embarrassed about going out to check her mail in them. However, I am standing there, staring at the usual pile of pie dough scraps, when a little fruitfly whispers in my ear: pasta de guayaba! And I’m all, I don’t speak fruitfly! You’re in America now! Learn the language! Freeloader.
First, a taste. Primary reaction: SUGAR! Holy christ, that’s sweet. But then: GUAVA! Lovely, floral, tropical guava. It even has the slight grit of a guava – like a pear. Somewhat disheartened, I wonder how I can make something so sweet palatable.
Hmm, I wonder, while staring at some fresh peaches. Hmm. What will I do. Hmm. Go buy some lemons? What would I do with them then? Hmm. Man, there’s a lot of fruitflies around those peaches.
I know what you’re thinking: for a lady, she’s a sharp one.
There was enough dough left over for four hand-pies, which included 1 1/2 good-sized slices of guava paste and three slices of peach each. Unsure of what else to do to them, I left them plain. Just peach and guava paste, no spices, nothing. The paste was plenty sugary to sweeten the slightly underripe peach, and I was getting too hot to give a shit otherwise. I hit them with some egg wash and granulated sugar to form a crust and into the oven they went.
So basically, here’s the deal: this was maybe the best fucking pastry I have made in my entire goddamn life. The guava paste softened in the heat and peach juices, and the peaches themselves were perfectly cooked. For whatever reason, instead of suffering under the indignity of a re-roll, my pie dough turned out perfectly flaky and crisp. The proportions, the flavors, everything about it was incredible. As I ate I was overwhelmed with a blind fury, incensed that I hadn’t made a dozen of these things instead of wasting my time with that stupid raspberry pie. Crumbs sprayed from me in a cloud. I gulped for air around giant, still-warm mouthfuls of pie.
Jason, we may have to arrange for more of this guava paste to belong to me.
August 27th, 2010 | Obsessed
First of all, I loooove this blog. If you knew how many times I checked this page DAILY for new posts…well, then you’d know how neurotic I can be. But, more importantly, I want to talk about fruit paste. I bought some tamarind paste a while ago and have been staring at it ever since. I’m thinking thinned and loosened with some water or juice and put in the bottom of some ramekins; on top of this paste I’m thinking tapioca pudding cooked with coconut cream and maybe some garam masala. Then, a bruleed crust of turbinado sugar on top. But this pie idea…it may cause me to stray from my original intentions. Thanks for being real.
you should definitely check out dulce de membrillo or quince paste. it’s amazing in pastries, but it’s also great melted down with some water and used as a glaze for meats.
I like the idea of this tamarind paste.
Fruit pies suck
recently i had this parfait-type thing that was tapioca pudding layered with guava something (i’m guessing paste, thinned down a little). although meg’s idea sounds pretty tip-top, just the pudding and guava stuff on its own was out of control delicious.
Isn’t it funny how the things you just throw together last minute sometimes outshine the things you preplan and put lots of thought into? It’s always good to have a new tasty treat to throw into the arsenal though!
Where the hell do you get guava paste? That sounds aweseome.
I used to love guava. We had a guava bush in the house I grew up in and I used to eat them by the handfuls every summer. We moved when I turned five and I haven’t had a guava since. I don’t remember what they taste like but I remember the grit. And that I loved them.
Meg: D’aw! Shucks. Also, you should know that I am totally obsessed with tamarind anything. When we order Indian delivery, they know to bring me enough tamarind chutney to use as a beverage. When we get tacos, they know to give me their largest tamarindo, and before they give me anything else. I have several open tubs of liquid tamarind paste in my fridge. BUT! I have never considered getting one of the firm blocks and using it to make a pastry. THIS WILL HAPPEN.
Asshole: I can no longer guarantee you safe passage through my kingdom. I’m sorry, and godspeed.
Carrie Anne: Personally get it though my Floridian guava dealer whom we only know as “Chacho.” But I noticed you can order it online for pretty cheap. It’s Cuban, but I also noticed that Goya makes a Mexican version? I wonder if they’re the same. The Goya is probably pretty easy to find in a market in your own town, I’m guessing.
I’m going to have to get me to the Carneceria.
so, at our annual suffer through extended family picnic, a cousin brought these amazing pastries.
I know you can Sunday-fie these…
a tube of crescent rolls. (I know.)
Cream cheese
Guava paste
thick layer of cream cheese on unbaked triangle
healthy slice of paste on cream cheese
roll the bitch up, bake and consume.
These went quick! Not just because my family can’t cook, and I knew the next course was Jello with cherries, followed by salmon that had been grilled so long it was jerky, but also because they were delicious. Surprisingly hearty (yay cream cheese) and very orally satisfying.
BECCA. Okay, so, the guy that sent me the guava paste, Jason – this is what he told me to do with it. I mean, I guess minus the tube of crescent rolls part, but to make a pastry with cream cheese. And I kept meaning to, but don’t have any cream cheese in the house. So of course, now I want a goddamn guava-and-cream-cheese roll-up.
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