make your own fruit purees

Along time ago I remember one of the first bloggers of note was a new young pastry chef called Dana and her blog was called the Phat Duck.

Dana staged at the FD and posted the research chefs response to an email she'd sent on the way to make an optimal puree.
That certain chef said first 'freeze the fruit so the water contents expands and breaks down the cell walls and produces a greater yield".

Summer's here (well it rains slightly less here in UK) and fruit is in season and cheaper.

So I was wondeing what is that research chefs latest thinking for optimal purees and how to freeze & maintain them for quality for winter?

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Chris_Young_80640

Yes, I remember writing that email to Dana. And, yes, if you do a side-by-side experiment you'll see that freeze/thaw before puree does a more intense puree. As for maintaining, freezing works very well in most cases, and the colder the better. Do you have a particular fruit that you're trying to preserve for the winter?

adey73

I've been running Edward Snowden's PRISM on you for some time now :0 )

any really, is there specific technique per fruit? does adding ascorbic acid or stabilisers help?

also remember Heston from that Guardian column (did you write that too?) using fructose to macerate fruit, then putting in a dish with wrap over the top over a double boiler to extract a juice. Would blending the debris and juice together, sieving, then freezing produce the best result?

Chris_Young_80640

Adding ascorbic acid, or sodium benzoate, and other ingredients like these can be helpful for preventing discoloration of fruits prone to oxidative browning after their tissue is damaged. You'll see in several of our recipes that involve green apple juice we toss the chunks of apple with ascorbic acid just before juicing (and we keep everything as cold as possible too).

As for the fructose, dusting fruits with any sugar (or even salt or alcohol) will tend to draw juices out through osmosis. If you're just going to blend everything together, then there is no benefit that I can see, but if you want a relatively clear juice from the fruit, this is a good strategy.

We often used fructose at The Fat Duck because of research—validated by our own experience—that fructose often enhanced the fruity flavor of many fruits, such as strawberries or raspberries.

And, no, I didn't write Heston's Guardian columns, but the later ones often mention some of the results we were getting in the experimental kitchen.

adey73

thanks.