Ready to make hoshigaki? Let’s go:

Hoshigaki How-to

You need:

  • Firm persimmons
  • Kitchen twine
  • Vegetable peeler or sharp paring knife
  • Wooden skewers or stainless steel screws
  • High proof alcohol like vodka or gin

Use as many fruit as you like—you just need the space to suspend them without touching one another.

Soak the skewers or screws in alcohol for 5 minutes (you could also boil them); this is to minimize future mold issues.

Wash your persimmons. Peel them.

For screws: Twist a screw into the top of each fruit. Tie twine to the screw heads. You can tie the fruit on one long piece of twine, like holiday-lights, or individually.

For skewers: Pierce the persimmon horizontally across the top, just under its calyx—the skewer should poke out at each end. Tie string to each side of the skewer.

To clean before hanging: Either dunk the whole stringful into a pot of boiling water and remove at once, or use alcohol: Place the persimmons in a shallow bowl and pour the alcohol over them. You can re-use the same hooch for a whole batch.

Hanging the fruit: I use screws secured in the ceiling as anchors for vertical strings of hoshigaki, or as anchors for light bamboo rods from which to suspend them in horizontal rows (easier for the skewered fruit). Ideally, hang the hoshigaki in a sunny spot with decent airflow. If the space is neither sunny nor breezy, a small fan is close to essential.

When the exterior of the persimmons is dry to the touch, usually after 24 to 36 hours, give each fruit a gentle squeeze all over. As days and weeks pass you’ll notice the persimmons darkening and the interior yielding more and more, like taffy, until you can manipulate the whole fruit without damaging the exterior.

Drying times vary, depending on humidity and the size of the persimmons. Six to 12 weeks is average. The degree of dryness is also a personal preference. Less time, and the hoshigaki will be slightly jammy in the middle, more time and they will turn very firm.

Above: Hachiya after 24 hours—the over-ripe specimens are still moist.

Finished hoshigaki keep indefinitely. I store mine in large mason jars, at room temperature.

Trouble-shooting: The most common issue is mold, which seems to appear on fruit that was very ripe or soft to begin with, and whose exterior stays moist longer. My fix is to brush it off with a clean paper towel or cotton swab and then to paint that spot with a pastry brush dipped in alcohol. Inspect your fruit daily for the first couple of weeks to nip this potential problem in the bud.

Above: Slivers of hoshigaki with St. Nuage and and Bijou crottin cheeses.

And then it is time to dig in.

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