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Husk Tomatoes


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Saw these miniature tomatillo looking things at one of the stands at my market (Greenbelt) so I ventured over to ask what they were.

"Husk tomatoes, just try one, there's no way to describe them." So I did.

WOW!

These little tomatoes, a relative of the aforementioned tomatillo, burst in your mouth with an incredibly sweet flavor that is nothing like a tomato really when fully ripe. They're small, smaller than a cherry tomato, and can be anything from green to yellow, but you'll know they're ripe when the "paper" around them is brown and very crinkly.

The farmer mentioned using them in salsas and such, but I have no idea why anyone would want to do anything but eat them, it's like eating candy.

And this is from the girl who doesn't really like raw tomatoes, unless they are the best of the best locally grown tomatoes, no essence of grocery store tomato please.

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Red Rake had something similar at the Courthouse market on Saturday, but they were labeled as "pineapple tomatillos". I didn't get any, but some other friends had tried them the previous week in a recipe with chanterelles and shrimp; it sounded pretty darn tasty,

I bought some of those "pineapple tomatillos" there a few weeks ago, and the seller said that they were not actually tomatoes or tomatillos but something more like a variety of gooseberry. I am not a botanist. Anyway, they were fun because they were confusing - the tomatillo husk, the grape-ish texture, the pineapple-ish taste. But combining with shrimp and mushrooms, I can't quite get there.

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Husk tomatoes, cape gooseberries, tomatillos - if they have the little paper lantern, they are species of the genus Physalis. They are in the Solanaceae, the same family as tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, etc. I had some little ones in Egypt called harankash that were wonderfully fruity and sweet.

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