Dehydrated Feijoa

One of the first things we did when we moved into our house over a decade ago was plant a bunch of feijoa trees. They were the first fruit trees we had ever planted and I really didn't know how many would be a good amount. 6 should be fine, right?

Turns out 6 feijoa trees are quite a few. They all fruit around the same time and fejioas famously don't last long. Luckily the kids that arrived within that decade also love feijoa, but we still have way more than we can get through each March / April. We do all the classic things - give them away, make fruit crumble, jam, cakes, smoothies and freeze a bunch of them. But this year we decided to invest in a dehydrator and see how that worked out.

First batch ready to start

Skin on or off?

For the first batch I took the time to peel each feijoa before slicing and putting them in a bath of citric acid (to stop them going brown) before straining and putting in the dehydrator at 60 degrees Celsius for 12 hours. These turned out amazing. They have a really concentrated flavour, are firm but not too crunchy, and feel almost like sweets or lollies. A few people who have told me they don’t really like feijoas have tried them and said they like them.

The only issue with taking the skin off is that it really adds a lot of time and effort to the whole thing. We tend to eat the bigger ones fresh, so it’s the smaller ones that get dried. So, after reading online, the next batch I did some with the skin on (selecting the ones with the cleanest, nicest skin to do this. They dried the same, but the taste and smell was completely different. Leaving the skin on adds a very pungent perfume smell and taste. They can be a little tough around the skin part, but I reckon they taste a lot better - plus it is so much easier to leave the skin on.

Instructions

• Top and tail the feijoas.
• Remove any damaged or blemished skin with a potato peeler.
• Fully peel or leave skin on as desired
• Slice into roughly 5mm thick rounds
• Place in a bath of water with a few tea spoons of citric acid (or fresh lemon juice if you have it)
• Place into the dehydrator and follow your dehydrator's instructions for drying times. I dehydrated mine at 60°c / 140°F for 12 hours.
• Store in an air tight container

All done!

Storage

Once properly dried, the feijoa slices seem to last for a long time in an air tight container. It is coming up to 2 months now and they still taste and smell as good, with no noticeable issues.