Persimmons with Kinako Dressing and Black Sesame Salt

“When fall comes and persimmons hit the markets, plates at State Bird become a canvas for the fruit. We turn it into a sauce, the fruit’s heady sweetness taming the richness of duck confit. Nicole turns the Hachiya variety, whose flesh becomes pulpy when ripe, into cold, delicate granita. And it’s during the fall that we make hoshigaki, an elegant Japanese preparation that requires hanging peeled persimmons from strings for weeks and massaging them daily with your fingertips until they’re fully dried, intensely flavored, and have a remarkable chew. 

Yet it’s our simplest treatment of the fruit that I wanted to share with you here: wedges of the raw Fuyu variety sprinkled with cracked black sesame seeds and set on a cool sauce made from kinako, ground roasted soybeans (available at Japanese markets or online) that have a buttery, toasty quality. In the summer, substitute crunchy cucumbers for the persimmons. In spring, swap in cherries, pitted and then warmed in brown butter.” —Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski with JJ Goode in their 2018 Beard Award–nominated State Bird Provisions: A Cookbook.