N° 29: Milk Tea Rice Pudding Squares with Persimmons & Earl Grey Honey

...and how persimmons & tea (etc.) are related.

My first taste of a persimmon was thanks to an older woman who’d come to my apartment to give me a massage that she’d hinted might heal my searing heartbreak.

I’d recently befriended Hyun-ok (not her real name) in a painting class we were both taking at Hunter College. She must have been forty, I was twenty-three, working as a pastry cook at Babbo fifty-five hours a week and painting in the little spare time that I didn’t devote to the friend (not Hyun-ok) with whom I’d fallen desperately in love.

Hyun-ok, originally from South Korea, radiated mystery and tragedy and what I believed to be wisdom, and I alternated between greedily accepting her advice and praise and being creeped out by her seriousness and by her intense interest in me.

Anyway, she brought me a ripe persimmon from Chinatown and told me to freeze it solid and eat the frozen flesh like sorbet. The massage that followed did nothing for my heartbreak, and I got an “F - Incomplete” in the painting class (I stopped attending), but the persimmon was a revelation, a wholly new-to-me flavor (melon, mango, honey — in what looks like some kind of tomato?).

I still see persimmons (also quinces and cherimoyas and other fruits whose heady flavors I’ve only known as an adult) with a vaguely mystical aura — like the blue-leaved radishes growing in the witch’s garden in the Fairy Tale Theatre production of Rapunzel.

Talk to you soon. Thank you for reading this.

Brian

P.S. Remember to scroll down for the recipe: Milk Tea Rice Pudding Squares with Persimmons & Earl Grey-Honey Syrup.

We’re Related: Persimmons and Tea Leaves (and Blueberries, Too)

The trees that produce persimmons and the plants that yield tea leaves both belong to the taxonomical order Ericales, which also includes blueberry bushes, cranberry and huckleberry shrubs, kiwifruit vines, Brazil nut and argan trees.

While distant kinship among plants doesn’t necessarily mean the fruits they produce will look alike (pineapples and corn, for instance, also share a taxonomical order), take a look at the superficial similarities between the blueberry and the persimmon (scaled, of course, to highlight their resemblance):

I’m focusing my attention on persimmons and Earl Grey tea (black tea leaves flavored with bergamot, the floral-tasting citrus fruit) because I suspect that when they meet these two ingredients will complement each other to enchanting effect.

PERSIMMON

From Good & Sweet, by me:

The Fuyu persimmon looks like a squat tomato, golden or cadmium orange, and can be eaten when firm or squishy-soft, peeled or not. But the softer and darker the Fuyu is, the sweeter it will taste. The Hachiya persimmon, on the other hand, doesn’t give you options. This heart-shaped variety will be terribly astringent until it ripens to the point where it feels like a heavy water balloon that’s ready to burst. And its skin (which you don’t eat) will have reached a rich, dark-orange hue…. Persimmon tree cultivation has millennia of history beginning in central China. It made its way to Japan around the eighth century AD and to the US around the turn of the twentieth century.¹

Top ten persimmon producers, 2013-2022, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations: China, Spain, Korea, Japan, Brazil, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Taiwan, Italy, and Iran.

I’ve recently learned that dried persimmon leaves are used to make a tisane (herbal tea). I haven’t yet tasted it. Have you?

TEA

From Robert Spengler III’s fascinating book Fruit from the Sands: The Silk Road Origins of the Foods We Eat:

Given the vast range of true teas in the world—including Dongding oolong, gunpowder, smoked teas, biluochun, Earl Grey, Japanese gyokuro and matcha, Ceylon, the white-tipped Java tea, orange pekoe, pu’erh, kukicha, jasmine, longding, and ming ding—it may be surprising to learn that they all come from one plant. The differences lie in the way the leaves are processed after harvesting. The four main classifications of tea—white, green, oolong, and black—reflect the degree of oxidation, the aging process that the leaves go through before drying, in which they start to turn brown and develop distinctive flavors.²

Top ten tea leaf producers, 2013-2022, according to the FAO: China, India, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Vietnam, Indonesia, Argentina, Japan, and Bangladesh.

Culinary Implications

Just as a botanical relationship doesn’t necessarily imply a close physical resemblance, related plant products don’t all complement the flavor of one another. But tea and persimmons most certainly do. And rice, milk and cream, honey and saffron blend with Earl Grey tea and persimmons for a stunning dessert.

---

RECIPE: MILK TEA RICE PUDDING SQUARES with PERSIMMONS & EARL GREY-HONEY SYRUP

As noted below, this recipe can be made with or without saffron. I prefer to use saffron for the subtle floral flavor it adds — and for the brighter yellow tint it lends to the custard. I’ve included recipes for both gluten-free and wheat-flour crusts below (I made it gluten-free just because I like this pastry crust I developed for Kitchen Projects), as well as food processor and by-hand methods for making the dough.

Yield: 12 servings
Active time: 1 hour 40 minutes
Total time: 2 hours 40 minutes

INGREDIENTS:

for the crust (gluten-free version; for wheat flour version, see NOTE at end of recipe):