Preserved: Agbalumo Leather

Home / Nigerian Cuisine / Preserved: Agbalumo Leather

I’d never made fruit leather before.

Never really thought about it till Chi of Oya Come Chop suggested making some leather when I made some Agbalumo Puree.

Agbalumo

 And then flicking through Traditional Foods, I happened upon a recipe for Fruit leathers. 

Joy untold. 

Fruit leathers are homemade fruit rolls. They are a tasty chewy, dried fruit product. Fruit leathers are made by pouring pureéd fruit onto a flat surface for drying. When dried, the fruit is pulled from the surface and rolled. It gets the name “leather” from the fact that when pureéd fruit is dried, it is shiny and has the texture of leather.

The advantages of making your own fruit leathers are to save money use less sugar and to mix fruit flavors. Leftover fruit pulp from making jelly can be blended and made into fruit rolls.

For the diabetic adult or child, fruit leathers made without sugar are a healthy choice for snacks or desserts. Individual fruit leathers should contain the amount of fruit allowed for the fruit exchange; National Centre for Home Food Preservation

_DSC1719

 To be honest, it is a fairly simple process. 

You start off with fresh ripe fruit. With Agbalumo, I used the technique of peeling the skin off the flesh, learnt in the process of writing ‘The Anatomy of Agbalumo’ post.

I had roughly a cup.

_DSC1710

The next step was to do an ‘acid dip’. This preserves the colour and stops fruits from browning. There were a number of suggestions – I went with using lemon juice versus sulphur dioxide. I neither know it nor have it :).

_DSC1722

I cooked a sugar syrup, took it off the heat and soaked the Agbalumo segments in it overnight. I didn’t refrigerate because the recipe didn’t specify what to do, but it stayed well. Next time though, I’ll refrigerate it ’cause there was a hint of tang…like it was beginning to ferment.

_DSC0582

 The next day, I put the macerated segments, sans juice into the blender and attempted to puree.

_DSC0594

It didn’t work till I added a few tablespoons of the macerating liquid.

_DSC0597

The result was a smooth, thick, slightly sweet puree with the vibrant, tart flavours of Agbalumo.

_DSC0601

 And this was where my lack of knowledge of fruit leathers shone through – I didn’t realise the mix had to be a certain thickness. 

Use 2 cups of fruit for each 13″ x 15″ inch fruit leather

I spread the puree on a greaseproof-lined baking tray with a spatula. Next time, I’ll use plastic wrap / clingfilm

For drying in the oven a 13″ X 15″ cookie pan with edges works well. Line pan with plastic wrap being careful to smooth out wrinkles. Do not use waxed paper or aluminum foil;National Centre for Home Food Preservation

_DSC0603

I took advantage of the wonderful heat/ sunshine/ Nigerian climate and put it out to dry, covered with layers of cheesecloth to keep the flies at bay – this was hard, they tried to work their way into the mix.

_CSC0609

In the end, I put the tray in the oven on low heat – 125 degrees Centigrade and let it ‘dry’ for about an hour and a bit.

_DSC1739

Then I left it in the oven overnight to dry out…with the residual heat.

_DSC1740

 The result? Concentrated Agbalumo flavour in a chewy ‘jelly’.

_DSC1743

I peeled off bits and chew and sucked and licked.

The rest got rolled into a sausage and stashed in the deep freezer

_DSC1746

Some of it got baked in a breakfast recipe. Coming next.

Thank you Chi for the awesome tip. I’m thinking of making more leather before Agbalumo goes out of season.[wpurp-searchable-recipe]Preserved: Agbalumo Leather – – – [/wpurp-searchable-recipe]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.