Weird Vegetable #10: Kokarol

Name: Kokarol, also known as spiny gourd or kantola.

Appearance: The spiny gourd is an unlikely candidate for a WVW blogpost. For one thing, I had made a promise to myself, following the custard apple incident, to avoid fruit and vegetables with spines, spikes and scales – at least temporarily. For another, I had also had a rather emotional encounter with a different member of the gourd family during the making of a previous blogpost.

However, those of you who are au fait with Abu Dhabi’s selection of fresh produce will know that there are a great many gourds left for me to investigate. The spiny gourd seemed like a good place to start. At about the size of a large apricot or small plum, there is nothing particularly threatening about the gourd’s lime-green skin, tiny spikes and long stalk. In fact, as weird vegetables go, I would almost describe this one as cute.

When I cut the gourds open, I discover an almost creamy, avocado-like flesh, flecked with small seeds, and smelling vaguely like spring beans.

Where do they eat it? According to the label, my specimens came from Bangladesh, and indeed the gourds seem to feature heavily in Hindi cooking.

Cost and sourcing: My kokarol – kokarols? – came from Lulu, at a cost of around 12-13 AED per kilo.

This isn’t the kind of thing you’d eat raw, so I fried up my slices of gourd with a chopped fresh tomato, and half a teaspoon each of cumin, turmeric, and garam masala. There was no rhyme or reason to my spice selection; these were just the ones that I had readily available. Experiment with different combinations, if you like.

So, what did it taste like? My quick tomato and gourd concoction certainly wasn’t fancy but actually tasted rather delicious! The gourd tasted fresh, sweet and green, like peas or green beans, and had a soft texture which worked really well with the rest of the (hastily thrown together) ingredients.

Verdict: 4/5 I would definitely buy this again as an ingredient for a veggie curry. Just goes to show, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover: or a weird vegetable by its, err… mottled skin?

Weird Vegetable #9: Vellery

Name: Vellery

Appearance: You may be wondering, dear readers, how I select the fruit and vegetables for scrutiny within this blog. It turns out there are only a few loose criteria. The specimen must be a fruit or vegetable that is sufficiently strange in appearance to be potentially confused with a soft tissue growth or alien egg. It does not necessarily need to possess an unusual name, but this is definitely an advantage. It also helps if I’ve never seen it before – and, given that I grew up in the UK, that northern stronghold of fussy eaters, this applies to a startling percentage of fresh produce available within the UAE.

The vellery fulfils all of these criteria, and had been on my radar for a while; it was certainly something I’d never seen in a British supermarket. In my supposedly expert opinion, the vellery’s smooth, streaky green-and-yellow skin marked it out as a relative of the squash – perfect, I speculated, for squishing into veggie patty form.

Only, the vellery isn’t a squash, as I discovered when I opened it up. It’s a melon. I don’t think there is a greater first world problem than preparing yourself for making delicious (if questionable) veggie burgers, and then discovering that the weird vegetable you have selected for this task is sister to the blandest of fruits. I wonder if I will ever quite recover from the shock.

Where do they eat it? Most specimens you’ll find in the UAE have been imported from India, and indeed, once I’ve done a little more research into the origins of this melon relative, I discover that it’s eaten in Kerala. There seems to be precious little information about the provenance and consumption of this on the internet, though, so if you know anything else please do let me know in the comments.

Preparation: Prepare your vellery as you would a melon: slice it open, scoop out the seeds and pulp with a teaspoon, and cut the remaining flesh and skin into ergonomic slices.

So, what does it taste like? The white flesh of the vellery smells fresh and sweet, and during my initial tasting I can detect no discernable difference between it and a honeydew melon. After a few more bites, I notice that the vellery has a marginally more crunchy texture than your classic honeydew, and is definitely not as sweet as its more well-known counterpart. Indeed, its juice imparts an almost lemony, acidic aftertaste. I can envisage the vellery working well in a salad, perhaps as an alternative to cucumber or celery.

Verdict: 3/5
I’m not a big fan of melon, but there isn’t anything particularly offensive about this weird-looking customer, and it went down well with my other, considerably more open-minded tester. I would buy it again if I got a craving for something non-to-sweet and juicy, or if it was a particularly hot day in the sandpit.

A Halloween horror story…

This is what Lulu calls an “ornamental gourd”. I was going to carve a fiendish-looking face into it, but it turns out this thing is harder to slice open than… erm… a very very hard thing. God only knows what’s inside it. A dragon hatchling, most likely. Or an alien foetus. I managed to worm my knife in just enough to make it look like it had been stabbed, and so the Halloween horror story was born. Happy Halloween!

Weird Vegetable #8: Persimmon

Name: Persimmon (labelled as “parsy mons” by my local supermarket, which, since I didn’t recognize it, made it fiendishly difficult to identify once I’d got it home).

Appearance: Unidentifiable, but decidedly ordinary. The custard apple episode had left me deeply traumatized. I was shattered. I was hollow. I was casting around for answers to the most obscure of life’s existential questions. (“What is a custard apple, if not an instrument of the very Devil that I have always contended does not exist? If custard apples are freely available, what fresh hell awaits me within the fresh produce aisles of Lulu? Why did I have to be born into a dimension where custard apples are a thing?”*) It was time for me to step away from fruit with scales.

The persimmon, with its smooth, pleasingly sunshine-yellow surface, was exactly the kind of non-threatening specimen I needed in my life. When whole, it most closely resembles a slightly unripe tomato. Perfectly manageable.

Where do they eat it? Persimmons are grown across the world, particularly in China, Japan and South-East Asia.

Cost and sourcing: I got my persimmon from Al Safa Supermarket on Electra Street, but I have seen bigger, plumper varieties in Khalidiya Spinneys too. At Al Safa you can expect to pay around 20 dirhams per kilo.

Preparation: Check your variety of persimmon. I elected not to consume the skin, but this precaution was probably overly fastidious: in many cases you can consume a persimmon in much the same way as you would an apple.

So, what does it taste like? Unlike previous testings, I was reassured when I sliced open the persimmon; its firm orange flesh smelled vaguely squash-like and otherwise appeared completely non-threatening. It did not have a distinctive taste, though I did detect a slight, not unpleasant bitterness. Far more problematic was what I suppose a restaurant critic would call “mouthfeel” – the flesh seemed to render my mouth completely dry, like eating chalk.

After my tasting, I learned that there are different species of persimmon, which can be categorized into “astringent” and “non-astringent”. I am not sure which category my persimmon fell into, but I am almost certain it was underripe, which may account for the drying texture and slightly bitter taste.

A side-note: unripened persimmons contain tannins, which can make them coagulate in your stomach into a delightful gluey mass known as a “phytobezoar”. Treatment for this sounds distressing, so I would probably select riper varieties when choosing your fruit.

Verdict: 3/5. I think the persimmon definitely has the capacity to worm its way into my affections – while my testing was slightly underwhelming owing to the texture of the underripe fruit, further reading has attested that I’ve barely scratched the surface of persimmon potential. I’d love to try some of the dried or cooked versions.

Weird vegetable #7: Custard apple

Name: Custard Apple (aka, the fruit that broke me) .

Appearance: I seem to have developed a strange and slightly worrying penchant for testing fruit masquerading as reptiles for WVW: this week’s candidate, the custard apple, is covered with pale-green, black-flecked scales, like a sun-damaged gecko. My particular specimen is also heart-shaped, which does little to endear it to me; after my encounter with the snake fruit, I think I have good reason to be cautious of fruit with scales.

I give it a cautious sniff: aside from a vague whiff of tropical vegetation – to which you quickly become accustomed once you decide to taste weird fruit and vegetables as a hobby – it has no discernable scent.

Where do they eat it? Custard apples are native to South America, but now grow across the world, including Asia and Australia. My Lebanese friend reliably informs me that they are fondly known as kushtah in Lebanon, and are consumed as part of dessert. To each their own.

Cost and sourcing: I found my custard apple in Al Safa supermarket on Electra Street. It costs 28 dirhams per kilo; my pack of two cost AED 7.40.

Preparation: Don’t eat the scales or the black seeds. Split the custard apple in half and scoop out the flesh with a spoon.

What does it taste like?  Now, dear readers, I may hail from the land of the tasteless, but this Brit abroad would like to believe that she’s made of the same inner steel that propels our formidable rugby players to international stardom (in my dreams, perhaps). It is with a sense of deep shame, then, that I must report that the humble custard apple is the straw that broke this particular camel’s back: I rather go to pieces when confronted with the fruit’s grisly innards, and have to spend a good five minutes sternly persuading myself to eat it.

You see, I have a phobia of white foods (“white and weird things” being the colloquial term), possibly rooted in my slight dairy intolerance and innate disgust of fetid, oozing European cheeses. The custard apple is undeniably white and weird. Its internal structure is similar to that of a durian fruit, composing of soft, fleshy lobes and hard black seeds.  Its sole redeeming feature is that its soft flesh does not smell repellant.

After a few moments of hand-wringing, I’m forced to face the inevitable: I created the beast that is WVW, and therefore I need to feed it. I need to eat the custard apple, in other words, no matter how white and weird it is. I extract a spoonful of curd-like flesh, fastidiously avoiding the black seeds, and taste it gingerly.

I suppose it goes without saying at this point that I find the sweet, creamy, cloying taste of the fruit, coupled with its squishy, clammy texture, actively repellent. I feel cheated – dairy is supposed to limit itself to mammalian sources, not disguise itself in the form of weird fruits, but I suppose with a name like custard apple I can scarcely claim to have been deceived. Feeling violated, I dispose of the rest of the apple and flee my flat.

Verdict: 0/5 Wrong. Just plain wrong.

Weird vegetable #6: Granadilla

Name: Granadilla

Appearance: When I place the granadilla on the WVW chopping board, it rolls away smoothly, as though trying to make a rapid but unobtrusive escape. It is almost perfectly, comically spherical, apart from the stalk, which sticks resolutely up and gives the fruit the air of a Christmas tree decoration. (“Granadilla baubles: coming to a vegan craft fair near you this Christmas”.)

Piercing the skin with a knife feels a little like cutting open a fibre glass decoration, too; the fruit seems hollow, and the blade almost squeaks as I work it through the skin.

Once I’ve opened up the granadilla, I’m confronted with what looks like a nursery for sea creatures. Grey seeds lie suspended in translucent (amniotic?) jelly, protected by a thick, spongey internal layer.

Where do they eat it? The granadilla, it transpires, is a relative of the passionfruit, and grows across the world. It is native to South America.

Cost and sourcing: Perhaps because it grows so far away, the granadilla is quite expensive. Expect to pay upwards of 75 dirhams per kilo, even when sourcing from the ever-reliable Lulu.

Preparation: Cut open the granadilla using a sharp knife, and scoop out its greyish innards with a spoon.

What does it taste like? I have a certain sensitivity towards texture and colour when it comes to food. It is with a vague, slack-jawed horror, then, that I discover that the ectoplasm-like pulp is the part of the granadilla that you are supposed to eat. Still, after the palm fruit I’m no longer a stranger to viscous goo, so I attack my wobbly repast with a plastic spoon.

The granadilla actually has a rather pleasant flavour – definitely tropical-tasting, with a sweetness that is aromatic rather than cloying. The seeds, however, present a rather irritating barrier to any potential enjoyment you might derive from eating this fruit. They are many, and possess an unpleasant brittle texture which makes crunching through them feel like chewing a mouthful of gravel. I spend a number of futile minutes trying to separate the goo from the seeds, as it were, but it is almost impossible. The most effective method is to take a mottled spoonful and suck away the ectoplasm from the seeds, spitting out the seeds at the end; but I discover that, concentrated in this way, the flesh begins to taste vaguely salty.

And besides, I think, surely there must be a more ergonomic way of eating than this.

Verdict: 3/5

The granadilla tastes okay and is packed with vitamins A, C, and K, as well as phosphorus, iron and calcium. This nutritional breakdown, coupled with the physical exertion required to prepare and consume it, might almost render the granadilla a useful weight-loss tool. Personally, though, sucking a mouthful of pebbles is not my idea of fun. Lovers of pomegranates and passionfruit may disagree.

 

Weird vegetable #5: Palm fruit

Name: Palm fruit

Appearance: The palm fruit that I’ve selected for this week’s blog post is smooth, round and firm, fitting snugly into my hand like a cricket ball. Despite its potential efficacy as a projectile, it does not look remotely edible, and not for the first time when confronted with a candidate for this blog, I wonder how our ancestors discovered that it could be eaten. I suppose in the desperation of extreme hunger, anything that grows on trees might be fair game, but it isn’t as if you can simply take an experimental bite out of a palm fruit: the tough exterior is at least an inch thick.

Where do they eat it? Palm fruit, as its name suggests, is one of the offerings of the palm tree family, along with the coconut, and, interestingly, the snake fruit that I previously tasted for WVW. It grows on a tree that possesses the rather amusing Latin name of Borassus flabellifer, and is eaten across Asia.

Cost and sourcing: I bought my palm fruit from Lulu, at a cost of 8.95 per kilo.*

Preparation: It’s immediately clear to me that, just like a coconut, you can’t eat a palm fruit’s shell, and I don’t fancy risking my incisors to confirm that. But for a moment, I’m entirely nonplussed as to how I’m going access the fruit within. Do I peel back the polished fronds that lie flat against the shell? Or do I attempt to crack it open? After a moment’s hesitation, I eventually plump for sawing open the palm fruit with my all-purpose cook’s knife.

It is a profoundly unsettling task. Regular readers of WVW  will know that I possess a vivid imagination, and for some reason the sawing motion required to split the palm fruit puts me uncomfortably in mind of a grisly autopsy – a notion that’s only reinforced when a clear liquid begins leaking from the incision.

Like many of the vegetables I test here, this is probably not one of those things that you’d let your child prepare. You’ll need a firm grip and a steady hand to secure the palm fruit, and a sharp knife to cut it in half.

What does it taste like? Eventually I manage to halve the palm fruit, and discover that its impenetrable husk is defending a small white chrysalis-like globe. I’m reminded irresistibly of an eyeball, or, more pertinently to the task in hand, a lychee. The flesh is pallid, quivering, and jelly-like; clear juice soaks my chopping board.

There is not much of it, either. Perhaps I chose a particularly small palm fruit, but after I’ve scooped out its contents, I’m left with barely a teaspoon of edible fruit. Nonetheless, I’m grateful that this will not be a prolonged experience: like the dragon fruit that I tasted last week, the palm fruit does not possess a particularly distinctive flavour, and I’m not a fan of the jelly-like texture or slightly oversweet aftertaste. It is with some relief that I consign the rapidly browning husk to the bin.

Verdict: 0/5

I can’t conceive of a single situation in which I would buy a palm fruit and spend five minutes hacking it open in order to access its slimy innards. Not one.

*I’ve decided to change the way that I cost up my weird vegetables. Rather than costing them per item, I’ll give you the price per kilo. This will hopefully give you a more realistic idea of how much you should expect to pay should you decide to try this weird and wonderful produce yourself.

 

 

Weird vegetable #4: Dragon fruit

Name: Pithaya, commonly known by its English name of dragon fruit.

Appearance: Its name may sound almost as ferocious as the snake fruit I taste-tested last month, but wherever the dragon fruit gleaned its mythological connotations, it was certainly not from its appearance. With its vivid magenta skin – the same synthetic pink as an 80’s lipstick – and green spikes, the dragon fruit looks a bit like a pineapple going through an emotional teen punk phase.

When I slit open the fruit – carefully hulling it first, although I don’t think this is necessary – I discover white, fibrous flesh, flecked with black seeds. I immediately recoil – I have an irrational fear of white foods, and besides, the dragon fruit’s interior reminds me irresistibly of frogspawn. Curiouser and curiouser.

Where do they eat it? Dragon fruit grow on cactuses. They probably came from Mexico originally, but today they’re cultivated and eaten across the world.

Cost and sourcing: My dragon fruit cost 4 dirhams and 80 fils. As usual, Lulu was my source (they don’t pay me an advertising fee, I swear).They’re markedly more expensive in the UK, and, as I reported in my eddoes blog, much smaller and less colourful.

Preparation: Halve your dragon fruit and scoop out the frogspawn-like flesh. This is the bit you eat. The magenta skin, while pretty, is not edible.

So, what does it taste like? When I take my first tentative bite of the dragon fruit, I’m fully prepared for a burst of tropical flavour. I’m a little puzzled, then, to find that the fruit tastes of… well… nothing. Bemused, I cut another slice – perhaps, I speculate, I’m not getting the full benefit of the fruit’s flavour because it has recently emerged from my fridge – but even after eating a quarter of it, I still can’t taste anything. Only a slightly sweet aftertaste indicates that I have indeed been eating a tropical fruit.

Texture-wise, the fruit is probably most similar to a kiwi, and it’s pleasingly juicy. A good candidate for a long hot afternoon, but then so is a glass of water, frankly.

So, what did you do with it? The dragon fruit is so bland that I figure it could be paired with pretty much anything, so I decide to add it to a smoothie. I blitz the remainder of the dragon fruit flesh with a handful of frozen strawberries and a ripe banana. The dragon fruit’s high water content has the benefit of lending my smoothie a looser texture than those I’ve made in the past. Strangely, it also has the effect of diminishing the sweetness of the banana and the tartness of the strawberries. For the first time, I can actually taste something – a very delicate, not unpleasant floral flavour, almost like I’d thrown a head of cut flowers into the blender along with the other fruit. The dragon fruit’s many seeds, meanwhile, add an interesting dynamic to the smoothie’s texture.

Verdict: 2/5
The dragon fruit is like the hipster you meet at a party who has a red Mohawk and a sleeve of unexplainable tattoos, but who has nothing of interest to say once you’ve gotten past his tough exterior. I’m not sure I would buy it again, not even to add to my morning smoothie. For UK readers, the quality of the fruit available over there is too low to justify the hefty price tag. Stick with a glass of water.

Weird vegetable #3: Eddoe

Name: Eddoe

Appearance: “What the hell is that?” says my mother warily as I proffer the eddoe. She has agreed to help me test a strange vegetable, no doubt in a moment of giddy hedonism inspired by the excitement of having her only daughter visiting, but as she beholds my selection she seems to be having misgivings. I’m secretly pleased by her reaction: the only other potential blog post candidate I can find in the fruit and vegetable section of my hometown ASDA is a rather small, sad-looking dragonfruit.

I can understand her reservations, though. With its brown, husk-like skin, the eddoe at best resembles a small, malformed coconut; at worst, it could be mistaken for a fossilized elephant stool. Indeed, I almost feel like I should be equipped with an archaeologist’s brush rather than a knife as I examine it in my mother’s kitchen. It does not look even slightly edible.

When I slit it open, however, I’m immediately reassured. This is no durian relative. Its firm white flesh and starchy sap marks it out as a root vegetable, and it smells vaguely of a young squash or pumpkin. I’m sold.

Where do they eat it? Eddoes feature in Caribbean, Indian and Chinese cuisine.

Cost and sourcing: I bought my eddoe from Asda in the UK. I must confess that I’ve never seen one in Abu Dhabi. At £4 per kilo, they aren’t cheap, but as always with exotic vegetables, check independent retailers for more competitive pricing.

Preparation: The eddoe is perhaps the most low-maintenance of the vegetables I’ve tried so far. Treat it as you would a potato: quickly peel away the brown skin, and then give it a cursory wash.

So, what does it taste like? Despite my supposed multicultural palate and expat credentials, it seems at heart I’m a typical Northern English girl: on learning that the eddoe is very similar to a potato or yam, I decide to make chips. I experiment with two thicknesses: a very thin version, almost like a potato crisp, and a chunkier, half-centimetre-thick version, to get the full benefit of the eddoe’s slightly fibrous, dense texture.

The thin, crisp-like iterations come out on top, although of course there is very little that can’t be improved by an oil baptism and a sprinkle of salt. However, the thicker chips betray a little more of the vegetable’s flavour: very similar to potato, but with a hint of sweetness. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Eddoe chips

Serves 1

1 small eddoe

Oil, to fry

 

1. Peel the eddoe and give it a quick wash. Slice to the desired thickness.
2. Heat the oil and test its temperature by frying a small piece of eddoe in it. If it floats to the top and hisses around, the oil is ready.
3. Fry the sliced eddoe for about a minute or so, and then serve immediately with salt. A sweet chilli dip or ketchup would work well here.

Verdict: 4/5

I thoroughly enjoyed my experimentation with eddoes and would definitely buy this ingredient again – but only if I could find it for a more economical price. Nutritionally speaking, this is definitely a carbohydrate, so if a potato is just a potato to you, I would probably not bother paying the additional premium.

 

Weird vegetable #2: Snake fruit

Name: Snake fruit, also known as salak.

Appearance: Snake fruit gets its name from its rough, scaly skin, which is covered in soft prickles. That’s right: this fruit has scales – don’t pretend your stomach isn’t rumbling already. While not exactly ovoid in profile, snake fruit is still close enough in shape to resemble the dragon eggs of legend.

One does not usually attempt to eat fruit that looks like it has been freshly birthed from a cold, reptilian womb, so it is with some trepidation that I gingerly slit my snake fruit with a small paring knife. The coarse exterior falls away immediately, leaving the pale lobes of the foetus – sorry, fruit – behind. Yum.

Where do they eat it? Snake fruit grows at the base of salak palm trees, in the wombs of serpents, and in the bowels of hell. It is mainly eaten in Indonesia, particularly in its native Java and Sumatra.

Cost and sourcing: My six snake fruit set me back by 4 dirhams and 80 fils, and came from the Lulu in Mushrif Mall.

So, what does it taste like? A sense of deep, carnal foreboding – already roused when I felt the fruit’s coarse exterior – only intensifies once I’ve sliced the snake fruit in half. I make the mistake of inhaling one of the cut halves, and fight back a retch: I’m instantly reminded of durian fruit, which I sampled in Sri Lanka in July. For the uninitiated, durian fruit smells of sickly-sweet putrefaction, like a seal carcass decomposing on a sea shore. Its soft, slimy texture, reminiscent of a rotten garlic clove, only reinforces this unfortunate comparison with decaying flesh. (This is a strictly personal perspective, by the way – durian fruit is enjoyed across Asia, and certainly my Sri Lankan driver seemed entirely bemused by my reaction to its strong taste).

I swore that I would never eat durian fruit again, but having stumbled across one of its milder cousins I’m being forced to rapidly reassess such strongly-held values. Experimentation and a willingness to try anything once are the values at the heart of this blog, after all, so I dig around inside myself for my brusque Northern English practicality, cut off a small piece of snake fruit flesh, and place it warily in my mouth.

This moment of stoicism pays off: after a few seconds of eyes-screwed-shut, reluctant chewing, I’m surprised to discover that snake fruit doesn’t taste quite as vile as appearances had suggested. With its tart juices, firm texture and slightly sweet aftertaste, it reminds me a little of a nectarine, or perhaps an unripe mango. A slight hint of the putrefaction that so repulsed me earlier, however, never quite leaves the party.

Preparation: To prepare your snake fruit, slice it in half and remove the outer skin. The fruit should contain a stone or pip – discard this before eating.

Verdict: 2/5

My previous traumatic experience with durian fruit tainted this week’s taste-test with its scaly sister, but not fatally so. While I would never describe snake fruit as “delicious”, “delectable” or “delightful”, I can easily imagine its distinctly tropical flavour appealing to those with more adventurous palates. It certainly has a place in a fruit salad – try pairing it with fruits such as banana or melon, whose blander flavours and more pleasing aromas should cut through the tartness nicely.