Pepino Dulce -- The Cucumber Melon, explained.

I have a good local farmers market.  One stall is occupied by a woman who sells young plants of an astonishing variety.  She has the usual tomatoes, peppers, greens, herbs.  But she also offers intriguing plants, many of which I have never heard of.  This brings me back again and again to see what I want to try to grow in my yard.

What I want to share with you is the success I had with the pepino dulce I brought home last year.  I bought it just because the description said it likes growing in my area and that it makes fruit.  Once I got home, I spent time reading up on it.

Pepino dulce:  Wikipedia tells us that "Solanum muricatum is a species of evergreen shrub native to South America and grown for its sweet edible fruit."  It appears to be a native of Chile or Peru.  You can tell by the genus Solanum that it is related to tomatoes and eggplants.  Some people call it a "sweet cucumber", a cucumber melon, or a pepino melon.

I knew it would grow into a bush-like shape that would benefit from some wire support.  It needed full sun and a decent amount of watering.  I had recently made some new planting beds with automatic irrigation, so I had an appropriate place to put my new baby plant.

A tiny baby!

That was in fall of 2021.  Its growth really took off last spring.  I loved the flowers, which are white with purple stripes (or was that purple with white stripes?).

Here it is at its prime several months ago:

The bush is about 4 feet in diameter across the ground and about 2 to 3 feet tall.  You can see the fruit on it, as well as some flowers.  It is a robustly healthy plant with only a few issues from whiteflies, which did not appear to affect its growth.

I wasn't sure exactly when to harvest the fruit and ended up trying it when it was green, ripe, and very ripe.  Amazingly enough, they were all good in their way.

As the fruit ripens, it develops purple stripes.  Sometimes bold, sometimes subtle, and you might have to look hard, but you can find them.

When they still have a greenish tinge, they are not fully ripe.

Greenish with stripes, but starting to change to cream-colored.

You can still eat them.  They are firm, almost crispy, and they taste just like cucumbers.  I ate them raw, sliced into a salad like a cucumber.  Very nice!  I also pan-fried them in a little olive oil and dressed them with a sprinkling of salt and pepper.  Still good!

The next color phase is cream heading to yellow-cream.  The fruit feels a little softer, but not by much.  At this stage it is starting to taste more like a honeydew melon, just not as sweet.  It is juicy, mild, and refreshing.  I call this ripe.

Very ripe is when the fruit may be even more yellow-cream colored, it softer, and has a distinctly banana-like scent to it.  

There are both ripe and very ripe examples here.

Visually they might be the same but the banana scent is very distinctive.  The skin slips off easily.  It is more a food I would add to a fruit salad instead of a tossed green salad.

The skin, core, and seeds are edible, but I prefer to cut out the core and seeds.  Some people I have had taste it prefer to remove the skin.  

Sometimes there is a space between the seeds/core and the fruit.

The ripe and very ripe are good to eat in slices, just as they are.  I haven't tried mixing them with other fruits in a salad or other dish.  They do pair quite nicely with gouda cheese and similar mild, white cheeses.  I have put them out with a cheese platter and enjoyed them a lot.

What's interesting is that, despite the banana scent, they do not taste like bananas at all, not even a hint.  They continue to taste like less-sweet honeydew melons.  

Here in Southern California we are on watering restrictions because of the drought, so my pepino dulce plant is looking stressed.  It still has young fruit on it and is supposed to be a perennial, so I am hoping I won't lose it and I can see what it does next year.

I enjoy the fruit, though not everyone does.  One guest taster said it made her burp just like cucumbers do.  Several guest tasters liked it enough to request cuttings for their own yards.  I read that the plant can reproduce by seed but does better from cuttings.  I currently have four cuttings enthusiastically sprouting roots while in glass jars with water.  They will go into pots soon.  (Update:  Once they were put in pots and set out in the yard to start hardening, the bunnies ate them down to the dirt.  I guess I have to try again!)

Chilaquiles Tapatios -- A Pinedo recipe

It is time for another Encarnacion Pinedo's recipe!  (If you aren't aware of these, do a search for the keyword "Pinedo" to see more.)

My company was a guest taster for a previous Pinedo recipe, so I was confident that DB wouldn't mind me experimenting on him again.  I wanted something that said "Mexican food" and included chiles and meat.

What I decided on was Chilaquiles Tapatios, from page 57.  

The word "chilaquile" indicates a layered dish of meat and tortillas.  "Tapatios" indicates it is Guadalajara style in its makeup.  I believe that traditionally, chilaquiles are a breakfast dish but I was serving it as a main course at dinner.  This recipe does not include eggs, but chilaquiles often do.  

Today, most chilaquile recipes specify to either fry strips of tortillas or to use tortilla chips.  Miss Pinedo does not specify frying them here, although she directs them to be boiled in another recipe.

My Redaction

about 1 1/2 ounces dried chiles

boiling water

11 ounces pork chorizo

1.1 pounds boneless pork meat, cut into bite-sized pieces

2 tomatoes, about 7 ounces before prepping, cut into about 1 cm pieces

6 or more corn tortillas, each about 5 inches in diameter, torn into pieces about 1 to 2 inches square

2 to 3 ounces manchego cheese, shredded

1/2 to 3/4 cup sliced black olives

The can of red sauce was for backup.  I didn't use it.

Toast the chiles in a dry skillet, turning them often.  (View this site for details.)  Remove the stems, tops, veins, and seeds and place in a heat-proof bowl.  Pour in enough boiling water to cover, and then let them soak for about 15 to 20 minutes.  

Put the chiles and some of the soaking water into a blender and puree them until smooth.  You should have about 1 to 1 1/2 cups of chile puree.

Start cooking the chorizo in a skillet or big saucepan.  When it starts to brown, add the pork, tomatoes, and puree.  Stir well, bring it to the beginning of a boil, then turn the heat down to achieve a slow simmer.

Stirring occasionally, let the mixture cook until the pork is very tender, about 30 to 45 minutes.

On a plate with raised sides or a bowl, assemble the chilaquiles by starting with a scoop of the meat mixture, enough to cover the bottom.  Then put on a layer of tortillas.  Follow with another layer of meat, and keep going until the meat and tortillas are used up.  

Cover with the shredded cheese and top with the olives.

My Notes

I chose a mixture of Guajillo and California chiles.  They should add some heat but not a lot.  I know the chorizo adds some heat, too.

Here are pictures of my process:

Chorizo cooking, nearly done.

Pork in bite-sized pieces

Pork, chorizo, and tomatoes

With sauce!

Once the sauce was cooked, I put a ladleful in the bottom of my serving bowl.  Then I created the rest of the layers.  I wasn't sure how thick the tortilla layer should be, but I kept thinking about lasagna, so I kept it about two lasagna noodles thick.

First meat layer

First tortilla layer

Third meat layer

I chose to put a few tortillas over the top for contrast.

Three layers of the meat sauce was what I was able to make.  Notice I stacked the layers within the bowl, and I didn't try to fill the bowl from wall-to-wall.  I was surprised it stacked so nicely!

I put 6 corn tortillas in my redaction, I think I used about 2 1/2 tortillas per layer, with the last few pieces on the top.  If you want a thicker layer, use more tortillas!

I needed about 10 minutes before serving, so I popped it in a warm oven.

When it was time to serve, I put on a thick layer of cheese, and scattered the olives over the top.

Looks yummy!

The Verdict

I served it with a salad made of romaine lettuce, tomato chunks, pickled beets, croutons, manchego cheese, and a Caesar dressing.  A pinot noir was our beverage of choice.

My two guest tasters dove into the bowl.  (Not literally.)

I had to take a picture quickly, before it disappeared...

They enjoyed it!  I was pleased with the flavor of the sauce.  The chorizo added its special distinctiveness to it, so no other seasonings were needed.  The pork was tender but not mushy.  You didn't really taste the tomatoes -- they were a good background flavor.  

The feedback was that it was really very tasty.  In fact, the whole bowlful was finished off without any hesitation.  One guest taster wished it had more chile heat.  That would depend on the chiles you chose, and mine weren't too hot because my other guest taster is not used to that.  So one person thought the heat was just right:  some kick but not too much.  The other still liked it but wished for more.  I was fine with it.

The balance of flavors was right.  The tortillas near the top were a little chewy and contributed their corn flavor.  The ones near the bottom were soggier from soaking up the sauce.  I think the longer the layers stand before serving, the softer all the tortillas would get.  This is probably why modern chilaquiles recipes suggest frying the tortillas or using tortilla chips -- to give crunch and to reduce sogginess.

Success!

In retrospect, I would probably make the bottom layer of tortillas thicker, but not by much.  There is nothing wrong with them soaking up the sauce! The top layers don't have as much contact with the sauce, so I would keep them as I did them.

It seems best to serve this dish soon after assembling so nothing gets too soggy.