Grapefruit, grapefruit, grapefruit. We've made marmalade, we're getting bored with it halved for breakfast, and there's still fruit left on the trees. I love cooking Southeast Asian dishes and tried to substitute it for lime or lemongrass in recipes, but I feel like I needed something else to balance the
tang, and am stumped. I've seen some Japanese recipes calling for yuzu, is that the same as grapefruit, or would it work as a substitute?
Thanks, Shauna..
Grapefruit are so much more than just breakfast fruit. Even though grapefruit marmalade can be spectacular with its robustness (compared to orange), it is good to have recipes in place. Yuzu is a hybrid Japanese/Chinese fruit that to my palate tastes of a combination of grapefruit and tangerine. Sour and sweet, fruity and sharp. You can use grapefruit juice in some instances but you’ll need to temper those slightly bitter notes with some sweetness — even a great sweet New Zealand lemon will help. The thought of having a grapefruit squeezed over a slice of fish just doesn’t do it for me.
Where it works a treat is in salads full of textures and other flavours. Cut the top and base, and then the skin away with a knife to give you a bald grapefruit. Use a knife to cut the segments from the fruit which will leave you with a membrane skeleton of fruit which is only good for squeezing to extract a few teaspoons of juice at the most. Depending on the size of the segments, cut them in halves or quarters and toss into a salad — one grapefruit will be enough for four salads.
As to the other ingredients, try the following:
- Poached chicken breast, sliced ½cm thick, avocado dice, toasted almonds, rocket and olive oil — add the juice which acts as the "vinegar'' in the dressing.
- Diced feta, blanched green beans, halved cherry tomatoes, shredded witloof, baby cos leaves and toasted sesame seeds. Drizzle with olive oil and avocado oil, and again use the juice but add a little extra lemon juice.
- Warm chunks of hot smoked salmon, diced steamed kumara, blanched frozen peas, watercress and shredded radicchio. Drizzle with some beurre noisette (nut-brown sizzling butter) and eat hot before the butter decides to set.
A great salad
1 grapefruit, segmented into quarters or halves, as above
300g beansprouts
1 diced mango
Quartered cherry tomatoes, use plenty
½ cup coarsely crushed roasted peanuts
½ cup steamed podded edamame
150g diced silken tofu
½ red chilli
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp finely chopped fresh ginger
1cm thinly sliced lemongrass (just the inner core where it's tender)
Grapefruit juice
2 tsp fish sauce
2 tsp toasted sesame oil
1 tsp sugar
1 Tbsp toasted sesame seeds
2 Tbsp toasted coconut (long thread looks best but desiccated will do at a pinch), to serve
Fresh mint leaves
Fresh coriander leaves
Sliced spring onions
- Blanch beansprouts briefly in salted water then drain and refresh.
- Mix with mango, cherry tomatoes, peanuts, edamame, tofu, red chilli and garlic, ginger and lemongrass.
- Toss with the grapefruit juice, fish sauce, sesame oil, sugar and sesame seeds.
- Mix it all together and scatter with coconut and lots and lots of mint and coriander leaves and spring onions.
A great dessert
1 grapefruit, segmented into quarters or halves, as above
Grapefruit juice
6 sliced dried apricots
½ cup icing sugar
Vanilla paste
Ice cream or a large dollop of mascarpone
Crushed toasted almonds, pecans or hazelnuts
- Toss the same chunks of grapefruit segments and juice with apricots, icing sugar and some vanilla paste and leave for an hour at room temperature. Taste to make sure it's sweet enough.
- Spoon over ice cream or mascarpone and scatter with crushed toasted almonds, pecans or hazelnuts and pretend that because it's fruit, it's healthy for you (well, it is, if you ignore the rest of it).
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