2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Tamarillo (lat. Cyphomandra betacea) Is a fruit crop belonging to the Solanaceae family. This plant is also called a tomato tree or beetroot tsifomandra.
Description
Tamarillo is a compact evergreen tree or bush that grows up to two to three meters in height. The leaves of this plant are shiny, oval and rather large. And the pinkish-white flowers are endowed with five-membered cups and exude a very pleasant aroma.
Tamarillo begins to bear fruit from the second year of life, and its total life expectancy is about fifteen years.
Tamarillo fruits are egg-shaped berries reaching a length of five to ten centimeters. As a rule, they grow on bushes in bunches, while each bunch contains from three to twelve fruits. The peel of tamarillo fruits is bitter, quite hard and very shiny, and their golden-pinkish flesh has a sweet-sour-salty taste. The color of the peel can be either yellow or orange-reddish, and occasionally purple fruits can be found. In each fruit, you can find black thin seeds of a round shape. In appearance, the fruits of tamarillo resemble long-fruited tomatoes - it is for this that the Portuguese and Spaniards who first visited the homeland of this fruit began to call it a tomato tree.
Since the tomato tree is a subtropical plant, it loves heat very much and is not at all adapted to frost. And the harvest of ripe fruits is usually harvested from June to the very end of August.
Where grows
The homeland of tamarillo is considered to be the Andes of Bolivia, Ecuador, as well as Chile and Peru. This culture is no less widespread in Colombia, Argentina and Brazil, as well as in Venezuela. Tamarillo can also be found in the mountains of Jamaica, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Haiti and Puerto Rico.
Outside these countries, it is extremely rare to see tamarillo - this fruit does not tolerate long-term transportation very well and is extremely poorly stored.
Usage
Tamarillo fruit is most often eaten fresh. To enjoy their peculiar taste, it is necessary to peel off not only the peel from them, but also the upper thin layer to the very pulp. By the way, the skin of tamarillo has an extremely unpleasant taste. Peeling the fruit will be much easier if the fruit is immersed in boiling water for a couple of minutes. And then the skin is peeled off with a sharp knife. However, if the tamarillo is consumed raw, you can simply cut the fruit into two halves and extract the pulp with a spoon, while doing your best not to touch the skin.
A small amount of the pulp of these fruits is often added to smoothies and cocktails - this allows them to give them a unique taste and special aroma. Tamarillo is also widely used for canning or other types of culinary processing.
Fresh fruits are easily stored in the refrigerator for seven to ten days. And unripe fruits ripen at room temperature in just two to three days.
Among other things, tamarillo is also an incredibly healthy fruit - it is very rich in vitamins and does not contain sodium or cholesterol. And it is also recommended to use it for everyone suffering from regular migraines.
How do you pick good fruits?
When purchasing tamarillo, it is important to pay attention to the fact that all fruits have an even and bright color, as well as the most tight-fitting stalks. There should be no defects on quality fruit - no dents or specks. And with light pressure, the pulp of each tamarillo should bend slightly, and then quickly restore its previous shape.
Tamarillo produced in New Zealand is considered the best - at the moment this country is the most reliable exporter of these peculiar fruits.
