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Our harvesters visit the quandong trees many times over their fruiting season and only hand pick the best, fully ripe fruits each time. Over the ensuing 3-4 weeks, these get cut in half, de-seeded and snap frozen at their peak.
We then grade them and only use premium fruits in our superb Quandong fruit confit: We use a special blend of sugars and slowly and painstakingly nurse them over a 6 week period adding sufficient sugar to cure the brilliant brick red fruits to confit stage. We then balance the pH with fruit acid as a natural preservative and add a hint of essential oils from two particular native food plants to safeguard the sugars from fermentation. And when you open a jar or sachet of Cherikoff Quandong fruit confit, you'll be impressed at the richness and appeal of this wild fruit and appreciate the care which went into every jarful.
Because this is an expensive fruit, you should think of how to feature it in your recipes rather than mixing it in so much that it disappears. I like to finely slice the quandong halves and use these as a garnish over sweet or savoury dishes including marla (kangaroo) steaks, seared tuna, Asian noodles, lamb shanks or finish a meal with ice cream or tarts topped with quandong confit and drizzled with quandong fruit confit syrup.
