Les vergers Boiron has added two new flavors, Acai and Sudachi, to its frozen fruit puree range. The purees can be used for bakery items, desserts, and other items.
The two endemic fruits—introduced to the international market at the end of the 20th century—will stimulate the creativity of restaurateurs, pastry chefs, and mixologists all over the world, surprising their customers by disrupting their taste experience.
Acai: a wild berry from the Amazon delta
Acai was originally used by the Amazon peoples as an alternative to rice, eaten in the form of a bread to which cassava and sugar were added. This highly fragile fruit degrades quickly after being picked, so must be eaten fresh, close to where it is grown.
Now enjoyed all over the world, this “superfruit” is appreciated for its antioxidant powers and high fiber content.
For their frozen acai puree, Les vergers Boiron use fruit from the banks of the Amazon delta, in the northeast of Brazil. This tropical, humid, marshy region offers all the conditions needed to grow the trees, which fill up with the nutrients present in the flood water.
A cooperative of 19 producers picks the fruit by hand, over a period of four months, from mid-August to mid-December.
“Acai is a trendy, healthy fruit with an exotic touch that is very interesting to work with. I've been impatiently waiting for it to join the Les vergers Boiron frozen fruit purees without added sugar range,” comments Thibault Marchand, corporate chef at Les vergers Boiron.
“The purple-colored puree and relatively liquid texture reveal notes of black olive, red fruit, and walnut oil, plus lightly salted notes.
It can be a source of inspiration for creating desserts with different textures: sorbets, cremeux, pastry creams, acai bowls, and smoothies. It can also be used in savory recipes. The combination possibilities are infinite: red fruits, bananas, blueberries, coconut, blackberries, granola, chocolate, olive oil, almonds, vanilla, and fromage blanc.”
Sudachi: a citrus fruit from Japan
Native to Tokushima Prefecture in the northeast of the Japanese island of Shikoku (south of Osaka), sudachi is a citrus fruit that has been grown since the 8th century. Today, 90% of sudachi volumes come from this region.
Sudachi production is almost confidential—only 3,000 tonnes of fruit are picked each year—and the yield is very low, only 1kg of juice for 4kg of fresh fruit.
Grown in small plots (1/4 hectare) at between 300m and 400m in altitude, the fruit is picked from the owners’ trees by local cooperatives, before being processed into juice.
The raw materials selected by Les vergers Boiron for its sudachi puree come from two cooperatives known for their compliance with EU standards on fruit processing.
The sudachi are picked by hand, still green, from September to early November, so they retain the pronounced tanginess, typical of the fruit.
“Sudachi puree is different from other citrus purees due to its peppery notes and powerful acidity, naturally balanced by a slightly sweet flavour. This gives it a highly innovative use in pastry recipes,” continues Marchand.
“It can be easily worked into a sorbet, cremeux, confit or mousse and blends perfectly with coconut, cereals, mango, green shiso, basil, almond, hazelnut, chocolate, pear, tonka beans, praline, or gin," he says.
