What to do with this little sour punch...

A friend (Ruth) brought this to the loft the other day and said "See what you can do with this."-- she went on to say, "I don't know what it is, but it is SUPER SOUR!" So, last night's kitchen play time in the Loft was built around this tiny little citrus-like fruit I dubbed SUPER SOUR PUNCH.

Tiny Super Sour Punch fruit

After mulling over what to do and vacillating over a savory or sweet option, I chose savory. My friend (Ruth) had said she thought it might be interesting on fish, so I decided on fish. Next, I went to the store and kind of let things talk to me. The following pic is the assembled ingredients I purchased to work with.

The Creative Process Begins!

Ingredients:

• Pasilla Peppers
• Talapia Fish
• Cojita Cheese
• Cilantro
• Onions
• Cream
• Pinenuts
• Tiny Sour Punch fruit
• Cayenne

LOTS OF PICS AND METHOD EXPLANATIONS AFTER THE JUMP...

Method: This dish, from start to finish, took about an hour to make. It included the following steps (the fish step was excluded, it was simply pan fried in clarified butter, no-fuss, no-muss):

Fire Roasting Pasilla Peppers and Toasting Pine Nuts

Infusing Cream with Cilantro, Onions, and Garlic

Slicing Fresh Papaya

Squeezing Pulp from Sour Punch

Finished items assembled for plating

The Finished Plate

Fire roasted and pan fried Pasilla peppers, coated with ground pinenuts, stuffed with Cojita cheese and chopped onions - Served with grilled cayenne dusted Talapia - Plated on a bed of Cilantro infused cream with sliced papaya - Finished with a scattering of Sour Punch fruit pulp adding MICRO SUPER SOUR BURSTS OF FLAVOR!

Wine Pairing:

With WillaKenzie Pinot Gris

Fortunately, we had an amazing bottle of WillaKenzie Estate Grown Pinot Gris... It was PERFECT with this dish. This wine is bright, crisp, loaded with fruit, and has a touch of white flowers. It danced a jig with the savory fish, the subtle smokiness of the peppers, the sweetness of the papaya and the cilantro cream base - OH, and don't forget the tiny bursts of SUPER SOUR that had been scattered on the fish... YUM!