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When mirabelle plums are harvested, adults and children look forward to the characteristic taste of the yellow plums as soon as they collect them. With their numerous possible uses, the fruits are one of the highlights of late summer. They are boiled down, processed into mush or compost or eaten raw, but first the inedible core has to be removed. The fruits of the genus Prunus are not necessarily easy to core, but the following trick makes it particularly easy.
tool
In contrast to other types of plums (bot. Prunus), mirabelle plums (bot. Prunus domestica subsp. syriaca) can be pitted without any problems. The core is not firmly attached to the pulp, which makes pitting particularly easy and therefore requires little work. To pit the yellow plums, you only need the right tool:
- vegetable or fruit knife
- cutting board
- two bowls
When choosing the knife, make sure that it fits comfortably in your hand and does not slip. Although the skin of yellow plums is not smooth, slipping can occur if you can't get a firm grip on the knife. Especially with larger hands, an ergonomic handle is an advantage, since the blade should not be too big. Sharpen the knife before use to make the job easier.
Stone mirabelle plums
Method 1: knife
Many people believe that mirabelle plums are difficult to stone because they belong to the same genus as nectarines, peaches and plums. These are not necessarily the easiest stone fruit and can be frustrating in the long run, especially when the fruit is very ripe. Maturity also plays a big part in removing the core. Overripe fruit can also be pitted using this method, but it can be crushed, so be careful. Follow this guide:
1. Place the cutting board in front of you and the two bowls in close proximity. Now wash the fruits and dry them well. The drier they are, the easier they are to grab.
2. Take hold of the knife and place it at the base of the handle. Next, cut along the small indentation that all Prunus species make during fruiting until you get back to the base of the stem. You need to guide the knife along the core. However, do not use too much force to avoid damaging it.
3. After cutting, take the mirabelle plum in both hands and twist the two halves apart. Now the core either falls out by itself or is stuck in one half.
4. To remove the stone, simply use the tip of a knife to gently lift up on one side and loosen. This will stone the plums in no time. Place the pitted fruit in one bowl and the stones in the other bowl to dispose of them afterwards.
tip: If you don't want to eat the mirabelle plums raw but want to preserve them, you can easily remove the fruit with a food processor. Simply insert a disc for potato pancakes into the machine, fill it with a handful of mirabelle plums and at the end the chopped up fruit pulp falls into the collection container, while the seeds remain on the disc and can be disposed of without any problems.
Method 2: Stoner
Compared to the above method, you can make your coring even easier. In addition to the knife variant, so-called plum stoner offered. This is a manually operated kitchen appliance, which has a mechanism that slightly cuts the tip of the plum and then removes the stone using pure force. The advantage: You can pit large quantities of mirabelle plums within a short time. The following variants of the device are available to you:
hand stoner
Hand stoners are the classic version of the kitchen appliance. They are similar in size to an ice cream spoon and consist of two parts. The lower part has a mold into which the mirabelle plum is placed and the upper part has a device used to cut and remove the pit. After the mirabelle has been placed in the mold, you only have to press and the stone falls out.
combination stoner
The combination stoner is mainly offered for cherries and plums. It features two jigs that function like the hand stoner but are aligned in a vertical fashion. You don't have to press down with this variant, but push the lever down, which saves energy in the long run. Best of all, cherries can be pitted at the same time.
Stoners are especially recommended if you have trouble cutting or you need it fast. Even children can easily and safely help with the pitting of the mirabelle plums with the kitchen appliance.
Caution: risk of confusion
The above measure cannot be used if you want to pit another, similar fruit instead of a mirabelle plum. We are talking about Prunus cerasifera, which differs significantly from the mirabelle plum but is also known as the cherry plum. Many people cannot tell these two plants apart, although the cherry plum is very different from the mirabelle plum:
- Color: yellow, reddish, blue
- Taste: sour, stale, only slightly sweet
- Skin: smooth
- Harvest time: from the end of June to August
- Flowering time: March to April
Cherry plum, Prunus cerasifera
One of the most important differences of all is the core. In the case of the cherry plum, this is firmly connected to the pulp and, in contrast to Prunus domestica subsp. Remove syriaca only with a lot of work. So if you have a tree of the genus Prunus in your garden that flowers very early and produces smooth fruits in summer, you have a cherry plum. The Mirabelle harvest only begins at the end of July and beginning of August and lasts until the end of September if the conditions are good.