Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Buddha's Hand
It's creepy food week here at Erin's Kitchen.* I got my buddha's hand ("fo-shou" in Chinese; "bushukan" in Japanese) from the jolly Jim Churchill at the Hollywood Farmers Market. Churchill is one of the many citrus growers facing severe losses after the recent cold snap; he was even sharing pictures of his attempts to save his fruit.
Buddha's hand was likely the first citrus fruit known in Europe, and is sometimes given as an offering in Buddhist temples. It holds very little flesh, but the thick peel is not bitter, therefore you can use the entire thing as you would zest or lemon peel. Mine currently perfumes my kitchen with its musky lemony smell, but I have plans to candy it later this week. I'm also intrigued by buddha's hand jam and buddha's hand fruit cocktail.
**I've taken to putting the buddha's hand up my sleeve and pretending its my own then teasing my cats--because I'm that enlightened, ya know.
A NOTE ON PHOTOS: My camera is still MIA, so I've been taking advantage of flickr and the Creative Commons license. Many of the photos I've been using for the past few weeks are licensed under Creative Commons and I'm using them in accordance with the license rules.
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9 comments:
Very cool! I want one! Especially so I can put it in my sleeve. My dog would love that.
I almost went for the crosnes this weekend but the price kind of gave me pause. Maybe next time.
Erin, you know what chinese dish goes well with exotic find ? Buddhist's Delight *lol* :) But seriously, stripped them, make a good stir fry with some lotus roots, and some dry shitake mushrooms..yumsss :)
You can also zest one (a labor of love, with all of those crannies!) with a microplane, and infuse vodka with the zest. If you sweeten the infused vodka, you get the ironically named Buddha-cello. :)
I've bought a few this winter and have been experimenting - I had the best success with candied buddha's hand - let us know what you end up doing with it!
I think Alton Brown drew his face on one and used it as a puppet for some show or another.
KT--glad I'm not the only goofy one out there
MW and Anita--thanks for the ideas!
Sara--I will let you know the results
Chubbypanda--ha! Love it.
Fun!
whoa, freaky. you know what's amazing? someone long ago saw that and said 'i think i'll eat that' even though looking at that i would never ever bring it to my lips!
I've seen them at Jungle Jim's but hadn't the slightest idea what to do with them. Your cat trick reminds me of that photo of Picasso with bread shaped into hands in front of him on the table, as though it were his hands.
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