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Guava Fritters
Peel and slice thick the fruit (removing seeds). The lengthwise slices are best where seeds are prominent. Dip in fritter batter (see Introductory Recipes) and proceed as for other fruit fritters.
A skeleton recipe that assumes you already have a standard fritter batter and a kettle of hot fat. The gaps are worth filling in, since guava behaves differently from apple or banana in a batter.
- Choose firm, barely ripe fruitFully soft guava collapses in the batter and weeps sugar into the fat. Fruit that still gives only slightly under the thumb holds its slice shape and keeps the perfumed flavour.
- Seeds and cavityGuava seeds are hard and cluster in the central pulp. Scoop the seedy core out with a small spoon, or take the recipe's hint and cut lengthwise slices from the firmer flesh nearer the shell.
- Slice thicknessThe recipe says only 'thick'; something in the region of a third of an inch works. Thinner slices go limp before the batter colours; much thicker and the batter browns while the fruit is still raw and squeaky.
- The batterThe referenced batter is not given here. A plain fritter batter of the kind these books used -- flour, a little baking powder, salt, egg and enough milk to beat smooth -- will serve. It should coat a slice and drip slowly, not run off.
- Fat temperatureThe book gives no temperature; 'proceed as for other fruit fritters' assumes the reader knows her fat. In modern terms, deep fat around 365-375F: below that the batter absorbs grease, above it the outside darkens before the guava heats through.
- Dry the slices firstGuava is wet-fleshed. Blot the cut slices on a towel and dust them lightly with flour before dipping, or the batter slides off in the fat.
- ServingDrain on paper, dust with sugar while hot, and serve at once with a squeeze of lime, which cuts the fruit's musky sweetness. One medium guava makes roughly four to six fritters; allow two or three per person.
Guava is native to tropical America and had spread through the Caribbean, Florida, Hawaii and the Gulf coast long before American cookbooks began treating it as a household fruit. Its appearance in a general fruit-recipe collection reflects the expansion of the fruit trade: Florida and Cuban guavas reached northern markets mainly as jelly and paste, and cooks who encountered the fresh fruit needed to be told what to do with it. The instruction to treat it "as for other fruit fritters" is characteristic of the genre, which taught unfamiliar produce by attaching it to a technique the reader already knew, in this case the deep-fried batter fritter that these books applied indiscriminately to apples, bananas, peaches and pineapple.