Guava Duff

As tradition built it

Guava Duff

Duff is a nineteenth century British pudding technique; the guava filling is the Bahamian element, boiled at least an hour

Ingredients

The method as the tradition gives it, with the ingredients named. Quantities follow as we verify them, lead dishes first.

• sweet yeasted dough
• 12 to 15 large guavas, peeled, seeded and pulped guava pulp, minced or stewed
• 2 tsp dark rum or brandy rum or brandy, for the butter sauce
• 1 cup butter, for the sauce

Method

1. Spread the sweet yeasted dough with minced or stewed guava pulp.
2. Roll, wrap in cloth, and steam or boil for at least an hour.
3. Serve sliced with a rum or brandy butter sauce.

Notes

Duff itself, a yeasted dough rolled around a filling and steamed in a sealed cloth bag, is a nineteenth century British pudding technique, documented in British soldiers' First World War trench diet and in Henry Lawson's 1901 short-story mention of plum duff, predating any Bahamian adaptation of it. What is genuinely Bahamian is the substitution of local guava for the traditional British plum or raisin filling.

What a modern chef changes

Two-Texture Guava, Caramelised Finish

Rung 06

Method

1. Reduce a portion of guava pulp sous vide at a low, controlled temperature with a little sugar into a concentrated compote, layered beneath the raw or lightly stewed fruit for a genuine two-texture filling rather than one uniform pulp.
2. Dry a portion of guava in a dehydrator and fold it back through the filling for pockets of concentrated fruit against the softer cooked layer.
3. Finish the sliced duff briefly under a Big Green Egg run hot, for a light caramelisation on the cut surface that the traditional steamed method cannot give on its own, before the rum butter sauce is poured over.