Perad, Guava Jam or Cheese

Perad is a another well known Goan delicacy that serves two purposes, it can be eaten for breakfast on toast when it is not fully cooked or as a dessert when fully cooked.

This recipe will teach you to make the thick dark red Goan Perad. Perade is how my mother spells it in the Jam form is removed a little earlier from the fire when its light red in color, it does not solidify and is viscous in nature, while the cheese is solid and has a different texture that you will realize if you have eaten or plan on making it, so lets get cooking.

Ingredients:

1 Kilo Guava Pulp
800 Grams Sugar
1 Sour Lime
1 Tablespoon Butter

Procedure:



Boil the Gauvas after removing the the black patches on the skin, spoilt parts perhaps and the ends of it, after washing them thoroughly.

Slice the gauvas straight through the centre so that it becomes easier for you to remove the seeds from the center of the fruit.

Once you remove the seeds from the center do not get rid of them but collect them seperately in another container.

Once you have removed the seeds from the centre of the Guava you need to to liquidize the good parts of the gauva by putting them in a blender.

Yes thats the Guavas in the blender we also tend to call them mixers here in India. So this is done to get your Gauva puree.

Once your Puree is ready pour it out into a sieve or a muslin cloth so that you can filter out all the seed remains.

You will have to do the same with the pulp and the seeds that you removed from the guavas earlier, blend it just for a minute in the mixer and then strain it.

Once your done with the seiving you can place it on the fire.

Now comes the work, the most important part of making this dish is that you should not allow the bottom of the puree to get burnt. This means you will have to continously stir the dish at ocassions especially when it begins to boil.

The best thing to do is to keep the puree on a slow burner, it will take a good amount of time but patience always pays.

So just for you to know thats what the discarded seeds look like, you can throw that out.

Yes its time to add the sugar, which is done soon after you put the Puree on the fire, now keep stirring.

Yes you can see the colour begin to change in a couple of hours, you can see it becoming reddish orangish below. You can add the juice of the sour lime now and keep stirring.

When its a little darker than the image above you can remove some of it for the jam and bottle it.

Keep stirring until it gets the dark red colour that you can see in the image below.

Yes its ready atlast, if you aren't used to cooking your hand will be hurting by now.

Just before you pour it out into a tray you need to have oiled it so it comes out of the tray easily when its cooled.

There you go the perad is ready to be consumed, it would require a couple of hours for it to cool. Then slice and dice as per choice and relish another Goan delicacy.