Persimmon Dessert with Orange and Kiwi

Syrup dressing

1. To make a good persimmon dessert, choose fruit that is sweet but definitely firm. That is a bit tricky, because unripe fruit is held until the astringency disappears and the flesh turns to a soft mush. Such fruit is practically impossible to slice. But as they say, the market is big, so look around. Buying a ripe, sweet orange and kiwi is no problem at all.

   

   The sweet dressing must be cooked in advance, before you start preparing the fruit, because the fruit is dressed with warm syrup.

2. Make the syrup dressing. Pour 50 ml of orange liqueur, Cointreau or Grand Marnier (or another one) into a small saucepan. Heat the liqueur over medium heat and stir in 1 tbsp of white sugar (14 g). Turn the heat down to low and warm the sugar with the liquid until the sugar dissolves completely and no grains are left. Add 1 tbsp of squeezed lemon juice. In very small portions, literally a pinch at a time, add more sugar (or powdered sugar) for as long as it still dissolves. The syrup should be barely simmering.

   

   Don’t rush the heating, as sugar scorches instantly. If at the very end you can still see a few grains in the syrup, add 0.5-1 tsp of liqueur. Take the syrup off the heat and let it cool to warm. Syrup sets and becomes thick, so pour it over the fruit warm, not hot.

   By the way, if for any reason you can’t use liqueur, you can use ordinary honey that hasn’t crystallized. If you like, add natural orange flavoring to it, the kind used in pastry creams and in the filling for cannoli.

Fruit

1. Peel the fruit. Carefully peel the outer skin off the persimmons. It is fairly tough and cuts away easily. Halve the persimmons and remove all the seeds. If you’re lucky, the persimmon will have no seeds, and if you’re very lucky, it will have up to ten. Peel the kiwis. Peel a large ripe orange thoroughly, cutting off the peel with the albedo (the spongy white layer) and also a thin layer of the segments, so that the flesh of the orange is exposed.

   

2. Cut the fruit. Cut the persimmon into wedges or large thin slices, checking at the same time that no seeds remain. Cut the kiwi into rounds 5-6 mm thick, across the fruit. Cut the orange flesh out with a sharp knife, the way you cut oranges for Sicilian orange salad — you need only the flesh, with no traces of membranes or pith. Wash a few red berries with a slightly sour taste, such as cranberries or lingonberries. Fresh raspberries or blackberries will work too.

   

4. Arrange the fruit in dessert glasses. In small glasses, layer the cut slices of persimmon, kiwi and orange in no particular order, mixing gently if needed. Add a few red berries to each glass, spreading them evenly. Don’t pile up the fruit: it is enough if the fruit sits just a little above the rim of the glass.

   

5. Pour the warm (not hot) sweet liqueur syrup over the fruit. The syrup is thick, rather like molasses in consistency, with a pleasant aroma of orange zest. If the syrup has set too much and doesn’t flow, add a few drops of hot water and stir, and it will thin out. But, and this is important, never pour hot syrup over the fruit.

   

Serving

1. Decorate the dessert with whipped cream or ice cream and grated chocolate. Cream is easier: it comes in a can with a shaped nozzle, and you can pipe a pretty swirl of any shape. Leave the ice cream in the refrigerator or at room temperature for a while to soften, then pipe the amount you need onto the fruit with a pastry bag, whether vanilla, fruit or chocolate.

   

   Grate a piece of milk chocolate on a fine grater and sprinkle it over the dessert. If you like, add a pinch of shredded coconut or a teaspoon of cherry jam (7 g), all to your taste. The fruit doesn’t need chilling: as soon as it is decorated, it is ready to serve.

   

   Fruit salads like this are usually eaten with a small dessert fork and served with a dessert knife. Since all the fruit is cut into wedges, a fork is enough. By the way, serve the dessert with a small glass of Cointreau and drop a small ice cube into it, and the liqueur turns opalescent.