Yesterday, I needed to quickly come up with a dish for a food-ecology event I was co-hosting. One of my favorite challenges is the "see what you can make with only what you have" game; this is what I came up with.
I went out to the garden and picked a big basket full of pink lady apples and persimmons. I had gotten a beautiful savoy cabbage from my friend Suchi and a few pomegranates from my friend David's tree.
Fuyu persimmons are the non-astringent variety- they are hard when you pick them and only soften a little- they are not mushy like Hachiya (or Hayachi, as I called them until a few days ago when my friend (and teacher) Tamar made fun of me). It is believed that persimmons picked on the night of a full moon have many more of the small dark brown speckles in them, and those speckles make the persimmons sweeter.
REC
IPE:3 fuyu persimmons- bright orange, slightly soft
1 pomegranate
2 green apples or pink-fleshed apples, chopped into small pieces
1/2 head of Savoy or Napa cabbage thinly sliced
1 lemon
olive oil
salt and pepper
3/4 cup sunflower seeds.
I simply chopped everything, meanwhile toasting the sunflower seeds in a pan on the stove (shaking regularly to make sure they didn't burn)- then I mixed the seeds in with the fruit and the cabbage, and mixed in the lemon juice and olive oil, and sprinkled the pomegranate seeds on top. The colors were beautiful.
You might also try this with mayonnaise-although the colors might not be as brilliant, or also with toasted walnuts or pepitas instead of the sunflower seeds. Also, some very small pieces of red onion might be nice. Enjoy.
