PERADA | GUAVA CHEESE
Thursday, 16 November 2006 | By Mike | Category: Glorious Food, IndianMy friend VP recently arrived from India and brought home some goodies including a sweet confection called “Perada” [Guava Cheese] from Goa. I tried googling and wikiing [Wikipedia] for additional information about this delicacy but my search only led me to recipes of different variations.
The “perada” is a chewy fudge-like, block shaped confection made with fresh guavas and sugar. According to sources, guavas are a rich source of vitamin C, from 3 to 6 times more than in oranges to almost 30 times more than that found in bananas. Most of this vitamin C is found in the skin of the fruit.
Why it is called guava “cheese” is kind of vague to me. It must be that of adding some acids such as lemon or lime juice in some of the recipe variations I’ve encountered which aids in the curdling or setting process.
Here’s a recipe from about.com:
Ingredients:
1 kg soft guavas
Sugar [amount based on how much pulp you get out of the guavas]
Method:
Cut the guavas into quarters and remove the seeds.
Put the seeds in a sieve and add a small amount of water. Rub into the sieve and press down with a flat spoon so as to extract the pulp surrounding the seeds, into a bowl kept below the sieve.
Blend the gauva pieces to a smooth pulp in your food processor.
Measure how many cups of pulp you have - include the pulp removed from around the seeds.
Put all the pulp into a large, flat, heavy-bottomed dish on a medium flame.
Add sugar to the amount of one cup less than the number of cups of guava pulp. For example, if you had 6 cups of pulp, add 5 cups of sugar to it.
Cook, stirring frequently, till it becomes hard to stir and the guava cheese begins to come away from the sides of the pan.
Grease a platter and spoon the guava cheese onto it. Spread into a thick layer. Allow to cool a little and while still warm, cut into diamond shapes. When completely cooled, store in an air-tight container.
Thank you very much, VP!
Technorati Tags: indian+cuisine, indian+sweets, goa, perada, guava
That must have taste sooo nice. I’m drooling just imagining myself biting into it. Guava is one of my mostest favourite fruit. Hmmm… patikim naman! ;)
This resembles a big slab of the Cebu specialty, those mango strips you buy in place of dried mangoes. I wonder if it’s supposed to be the same in texture…
Interesting to call it ‘cheese,’ though.
CeliaK, the taste reminds me of my lola’s guava jelly!
Genie, hmmmm . . . I gotta get some of those mango strips and compare!
Bakit nga kaya tinawag na ‘cheese?’
interesting! does it taste like guava jelly?
hi PaulN, yeah, it does . . . :-)
Guava cheese is a fondly remembered childhood memory. I have recently tried to find it in London, U.K. without success. If anyone knows of suppliers/stockist, I would greatly appreciate the information
I am Carol from Mumbai, India and just to let u know that Guava Cheese is a common sweet made at Christmas festivities in all homes. It is a time consuming process involving mashing the guavas to pulp and the task of stirring the mass over a steady flame, but the end result is delicious, with each one saying put pink color, one wanting it orange and so on. It is a rather sweet sweet but one bite after a meal is enough …… I have a box sent to me from my folks at home sitting in the fridge right now and would have loved to share it with you all. I will dig out the recipe when I find it as I just moved house but this picture sure does bring back all the memories of Christmas sweet-making in Indian homes
Carol!