What are your three favorite winter fruits?
Winter is citrus and exotic fruit season.
I like clementines from Corsica, Victoria pineapples from Réunion and lychees.
Is there a memory attached to these fruits?
For me, fruit is always best when eaten straight from the tree.
My trip to Réunion Island introduced me to products with a different flavor.
My friend Giovanni Lebon introduced me to Ulysse Payet, a pineapple producer in Le Tampon. The taste of perfectly ripe pineapple straight from the tree is just incredible!
The juiciness of a lychee picked from the tree brings flavors we don't experience in mainland France.
As for clementines, I like to taste them at different times of the year.
In mid-November, at the beginning of the harvest, it has acid notes, while the last ones in January are much softer with a strong sweetness.
They're little candies.
What can we cook / combine these fruits with (sweet / savoury)?
Clementines go very well with chocolate.
You can make a chocolate cake with it, or pair it with fish (e.g. salmon gravlax recipe).
Pineapple also goes very well with fish, with pork (e.g. roast pork with pineapple) or even just fresh, in the morning at breakfast it wakes up the taste buds.
As for the lychee, it's a little sweet to be enjoyed on its own, but it goes very well with a duck breast lacquered with lychee honey.