Why tomatillos aren't just little green tomatoes (and why they're awesome)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ย. 2024
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My old enchiladas verdes recipe: • Green Enchiladas
1993 journal article from Poland investigating the safety of tomatillos: pbsociety.org....
1979 British Medical Journal item on solanine poisoning from green potatoes (an old article because that doesn't happen much these days): www.ncbi.nlm.n...
I live in a small rural town in Kentucky. I believe it was around 2004 when I first saw tomatillos at my local Save A Lot grocery store. At the time we were getting an influx of migrant workers in our area; they were working on tobacco farms and I was noticing more Hispanic foods there. I thought "tomatillos" must be Spanish for little green tomatoes at first. Then I saw the husk and I knew I was looking at something that I had never seen before.
I didn't have a smart phone back then and didn't have internet access at home. So I got the attention of a Mexican guy who was walking by. We stood there trying to communicate even though neither of us knew much of the other's language.
Eventually he grabbed cilantro, onions, some limes, jalapenos, and tomatillos and put them in my cart. Then he started miming how to chop the ingredients up and somehow I understood to roast the tomatillos from his gestures.
This was at a time when the nearest Mexican Restaurant in the area was a Taco Bell about 20 miles from where we were standing.
I started making salsa verde, pico de gallo, and began experimenting with making tacos without using the taco kits from the store.
Hahaha that's awesome dude, I remember having the same experiences in Arizona: where you couldn't understand them because of a language barrier but they'd still be just as obliged to help you understand. Nothing makes me happier haha.
@@ethanowens4289 yes. After that experience I wondered if I should have taught him how to make country sausage gravy or something haha. I even made that joke to my friends later that day. It's an experience that wasn't wasted. I've been cooking with tomatillos ever since and have expanded my knowledge.
What a great story. Now you're eating the good stuff. The language of great food is universal.😊
Probably the cutest story I've ever read in a TH-cam comment section
@@stevenrwh I was born and raised in California, but my father's family is originally from the South (in fact, Kentucky being where my grandmother was born). So I was raised on a weird mix of southern foods and Mexican. My grandmother would make traditional southern cornbread and pintos, but she'd add in El Pato sauce. I can't imagine beans without El Pato now. It would be like cooking without salt. Jalapeno and cheese grits is another great dish. It was all pretty weird for my friends in Los Angeles, half of whom had never had hushpuppies or catfish and the other half that had never had chilaquiles or nopales. I don't think I'd do well outside of the US. We just have so many great food traditions all in one place.
This channel consistently makes me realize how little I actually know about the gazillion things that go into the foods I eat
i grew up walking the multch piles & gardening - i taught myself how to recognize edible plants, i forage foods & ive even had food on the go
like biking through the Los angles, theres fennel growing at face height, so like a moose id lean over and take a bite of the sweet fennel flowers
you have wild edible plants all around you, first you need to know what they are, so learning the shape of plants so you can describe distinguishing Features, like i discovered i was growing Asiatic dayflower & that its edible
Comments like this make me realize I've spent way too long studying food and my life would be easier if I lived a simpler dietary life
You don’t know what you don’t know.
Until you do.
You can eat weeds. Just know the weeds to eat. We are so wasteful in our busy lives.
Realized that a long time ago
The calyx trivia about how it engulfs some plants but falls away from others was fascinating. Liked just for that. Great video as always!
If botanical oddities interest you, try Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't. Love that guy.
true
What's with all these bots?
Mild correction about the apple and pear - the flesh is actually the engorged hypanthium, not the calyx. The calyx is the little green bits at the bottom surround the brown hairy stuff (which is the dried stamens and pistil)
I kept waiting for a foreskin joke, but alas...
I’ve grown tomatillos for years and made salsa verde out of them, recently my sister was surprised to see tomatillos in the grocery store she said she assumed I was just mispronouncing tomato all these years
That is absolutely hilarious
Lmao
Did you ever grow the purple?
😭😂
When I was a kid, my mom planted several tomatillo plants, and we spent many days if not weeks harvesting, shelling, and canning them all through that summer. They are tenacious and prolific! We were up to our eyeballs in them. We recruited all our neighborhood friends, and actually had a lot of fun shelling them at first, but soon it started to feel like tomatillo purgatory, Sisyphus' boulder made green and juicy. Hoping not to repeat T-Day next year, we decided not to plant them again... the tomatillos decided otherwise. Dozens and dozens of tomatillo popped up throughout the garden the next spring anyway, and they became a weed we ended up needing to pull every year for the rest of the time I lived with my parents. That was probably 25 years ago, and you'll still find the odd tomatillo poking up in my mom's garden to this day. Buyer beware, all I'm saying.
Sometimes the universe hands us a lifetime supply of free food, to which we reply "no thanks, I'd rather struggle". The more we struggle for control, the more we're struggling for control. It's the destination we break our back on the way to, but can't ever reach. That's the difference between gardening that grinds down your will, and gardening that is almost effortless. The easiest adjustment to make is what we classify as a problem.
@@advicepirate8673 Man cannot live on tomatillo alone.
@@QuesoCookies "Surrender to the tomatillo" is exactly as stupid as "Root out the tomatillo"
@@advicepirate8673 Ah, you derive a sense of superiority by contradiction, even if it means directly contradicting yourself. Sad, but do you, boo.
Keep pushing over strawmen, champ.
Living in a Mexican household; I remember peeling the husk off the tomatillos for my father everytime he would make salsa. I always wondered why the outer layer was so sticky and now I understand why! Watching this video reminded me so much of my culture and the time I had with my father. Thank you Adam for this video, very informative just like all your other videos, that’s why I like watching your channel everyday.
I may be reading too much into your comment, but...
My father is also passed, and I also enjoy what memories I have with him. 🫂
Tomato is a vegetable or a fruit?
@@CalonDosen25Yes.
Mexican fan here: we absolutely LOVE tomatillos here, and Adam was spot on on our preferred methods of preparing a nice salsa verde. I personally go with boiling them since it's more accessible in case you wanna make something quick and less messy, but just as great. I also do fry the salsa a little bit becuse it makes it taste 100x better, otherwise a plain salsa just tastes pretty acidic. You need to balance that tone with other flavors for it to become a truly great salsa, so that's where all the personal touches come in.
If you want an amazing true mexican breakfast with your salsa verde, try chilaquiles; fried tortilla chips. You toss them in your salsa, take them out before they go soggy, and then add your cheese on top. We also throw in pulled chicken or a scrambled egg in there :)
but what do you call broilers? im desperate to know now 😂
for less sour taste, don't overboil your tomatillos. ever since my mom shared that with me, my salsa verde has come out perfect....it's only when I forget about the tomatillos in the boiling water and overcook them, that the salsa ends up being a little more sour than i would like. I also use a smaller variety of tomatillos called "tomatillos milperos" which are about the size of a large grape. these cook fast and I find them to be less acidic than the bigger ones.
@@nori633 We call them Grill... yes it´s strange now that I think about it
that sounds so goooodddd
Can confirm
I’d like to hear an explanation of why some berries are poisonous when, like you were saying, they rely on being eaten to reproduce.
Some fruits/berries might be poisonous to us humans, but not necessarily to other animals who can disperse them. Birds are quite morphologically different animals to humans, so what poisons us, may not poison them, and birds also contribute significantly to seed dispersal. Such as with poison ivy berries, they're poisonous to humans, but not to some birds.
Another example are chili peppers. Capsaicin evolved as an anti-mammal defense since herbivorous mammals tend to grind up the seeds with their teeth, whereas when birds eat chili peppers they don't have teeth so the seeds pass through their digestive system unharmed and are deposited elsewhere. Birds also don't have the TRPV1 heat/capsaicin receptors that mammals have, so they aren't repelled by capsaicin.
@@Crowbars2 Also just because a berry is tasty doesn't mean that they intend for animals to eat it. Not all plants are keen on their offspring being eaten. It just so happens that a lot of berries happen to *not* be poisonous for that specific purpose of being eaten.
@@Crowbars2 funnily enough, poison ivy isn't even poisonous to anyone except us humans, and it's not technically poisonous, it's just that most humans are allergic, since its an immune system response and not a liver response that makes them harmful to us
What @@Crowbars2 said.
@@aragusea LOL True that!
4:01 I could never understand why recipes called for aubergines (egg plants) and cucumbers to be sprinkled with salt ‘to extract the bitter juices’ because they don't taste bitter to me. Then I found out that not all people experience the taste of foods the same way.
similar experience here when a recipe calls for sugar to balance the acidity I've never understood it
It's the same with cilantro, some people (like myself) can distinguish the soapy-taste that others can't.
@@music_YT2023 that's sad because cilantro is so delicious and fresh tasting to the rest of us.
@@user-bh8id7of7n I can only be thankful it's limited to cilantro and not mint. The dessert herbs must not be sullied!
yeah. It's the main reason I hate almonds unless it's something so sweet they might as well not be there. They taste really bitter and feel like they coat my throat for some reason
We were taught to avoid berries with a calyx, specifically the "little lanterns" that grew on plants, as being a nightshade variety. I admit to having a small heart attack watching you harvest a "ground cherry". Many plants have toxic and non toxic relatives, so that's not a surprise. Moved to Cali and met the tomatillo. AWESOME! but was a bit nervous about it being a calyx berry. Well, it's great! Got to try a ground cherry but I definitely need to research their cousins to sort the good berries from the bad ones. Thank you for a very interesting video!
In Colombia gooseberries are pretty common, when I visit we eat them off the plant but it's probably a different variety. Nowadays you can find them in some supermarkets. I always check to see where they're from and it's always or almost always from Colombia.
As I recall when the native people first brought tomatoes to the colonizing people's the first were afraid of the offering because to them it was very much like a large nightshade berry. And no wonder too.
@@jacobfreeman5444 some regular-sized nightshade berries are edible too; there's a black nightshade variety that's entirely edible and was even a common food source for Indigenous peoples! Very cool.
Not that an untrained person should try to eat them, of course, but.
@@Takapon218 just like an untrained person shouldn't pick wild mushrooms to eat.
Cape gooseberry and ground cherries are a huge part of our summer fruit while our fruit trees and shrubs grow. I love them. I also grow tomatillos.
Also growing the maypop which fruits on second year vines. There are a lot of great fruits to try that you don't often see at the grocery store.
Another Etymological fact that would have been fun to bring up: "Tomato" comes from the Aztec/Nahuatl word "tomatl", but Tomatl referred to Tomatillos. What we now call Tomatoes were called "Xitomatl". So Tomatoes should actually be called "Jitomato", and Tomatillos should just be "Tomato". There's also still millions of Nahuatl speakers in Mexico. I also think that the Columbian exchange, especially in the context of Aztec botany ands agriculture (look up Chinampas and their use even today!), could be a good video topic for the channel. The Columbian exchange itself is obviously something people are taught, but what's less taught is that it's not just Europeans exporting crops, but adaption of actual botanical sciences and agriculture, too: The Aztec had botanical gardens (Huaxtepec, Texcotzinco/Texcotzingo, etc) where plants and flowers were experimented with, categorized into formal taxonomic systems (complete with binominal naming, like Linnaean taxonomy) and stocked for medical uses.
The Spanish recorded a huge corpus of medical treatments from herbs and documentation on flora in Mesoamerica from Aztec sources and records (The Badianus manuscript is a spanish annotated Aztec botanical text and herbal remedy document, while the Florentine Codex, a joint effort of Spanish friars and Aztec scribes/elders, has sections on botany and herbal treatments too) and it's even been suggested that Academic botanical gardens in Europe, which first show up in the following century, were inspired by the gardens Conquistadors described. While people like Cortes, Motolinia, and even Francisco Hernandez de Toledo, the royal court physician and naturalist to Philip II, all said that Aztec botanical and medical sciences (which they were also proficient with: they had the first use of intramedullary nails for fixing broken bones, better understanding of the circulatory system then Europe at the time, to name a few examples) were better then Spain's, with Francisco Hernandez travelling to Mexico and documenting Aztec records to bring back to Spain.
For people who wanna read more on this, I recommend "An Aztec Herbal: The Classic Codex of 1552" (an annotated translation of the Badianus manuscript), Book 10/11 of the Florentine Codex, "Public Health in Aztec Society", "Aztec Medicine by Francisco Guerra" (though it repeats outdated, disproven info re: inflated sacrifice totals), "Empirical Aztec Medicine by Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano", and "Precious Beauty: The Aesthetic and Economic Value of Aztec Gardens" (and a lot of papers/books by Susan Toby Evans, who is an expert on mesoamerican gardens and palaces), and Kelly McDonough and Enrique Rodriguez-Alegria's research on testing Aztec medical treatments. A lot of this stuff is published online for free as open access research, too. I also have extended writeups about this I've made myself (I do essays and help history/archeology channels with stuff on Mesoamerica), if people want that messag me on twitte, I'm Majora__Z
Amazing! This is the type of content I look for when I come to the comment section! Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
Thank you so much for bringing that up!
From where am I (Jalisco), we usually call Tomatillos "Tomates", and Tomatoes "Jitomates", just as what you said in the beginning.
That's sometimes a problem when you travel to different areas in Mexico, or even anywhere really.
This comment was so interesting and informative! As someone with a bad memory, I respect how much specific information you can remember.
I think it's interesting how often the wrong word is borrowed to describe something.
A slight nitpick: both of your uses of "then" should be "than"
speaking as a connoisseur, this is the best youtube comment i've ever seen.
Thank you, thank you for loving and respecting our food, for us Mexicans food has a huge emotional/social value. And while we (at least older generations) are very welcome and not gatekeepy, which allows for a lot of personal interpretation to our dishes, I personally always cherish when someone shows real appreciation to our history, and you thanking the abuelas literally made me teary eye (note to self, therapy maybe, disproportionally emotional, something to consider) so again, thank you for the love you show our identity.
I don't think that's being disproportionately emotional for what it's worth 😊
@@gnatdagnat cheers mate, thank you!
Love this comment. Love this channel. But my god do I love Mexican food and abuelitas.
Pozole can get it. Sopes can get it. Carnitas can get it. Horchata is nectar.
@@gnatdagnat This, food, and love for those who make good food, tears of joy and love are always appropriate!
Food is sometimes the last memories of a loved one, the rememberance of better times at the tip of your tongue. From your abuelas famous food to your neighbors chili, food has meaning and is a labor of love. It's beautiful.
The timing could not be more perfect on this one. I saw a video of acooknamedmatt who used tomatillos a lot and was always wondered what they actually are. Nice vid, Adam!
@@datingzonex6553 ok and
@@Stezachuda they're replying to the bot account
@@hiesama3680 forgive me 😔, I didn't realize.
I watch him as well 😄
Strangely enough I had a dream last night that involved a huge tomatillo, russet potato sized, weird timing.
Hey Adam, you missed one type of salsa verde which actually showcases the tomatillo RAW.
We usually just blend this all raw: tomatillos, a chunk of onion, japalapeño or serrano peppers, garlic, cilantro. Salt to taste
It's super tart and zingy, I actually love it. It takes some trial and error to get the consistency right, but once you nail it, its one of the best low effort super healthy salsas.
Yes, salsa cruda🇲🇽🔥
YES.: (Raw) salsa verde, just like your recipe, is AMAZING for any type of mexican garnacha, it's super fresh, spicy, flavorful and bright enough to cut right thru the grease. PERFECT match to any fried mexican antojito and garnacha. Its only 'downside' is it oxidates much faster than any cooked salsa but that's OK you now have an excuse to make it fresh every day. :D
To answer Adam's second question, no tomatillos are not only good for salsa verde. In fact my family makes pollo entomatado which translates to tomatoed chicken. It's a simple chicken dish that has at it's base tomatillos and onions with fresh garlic, if available. You basically cook the chicken with the vegetables until the desired thickness of the sauce is achieved and during the last part of the process you add either a blended chipotle paste or the whole chipotle chiles from the can. (for either option you want the chipotle chiles canned with adobo sauce)
Warning: If you decide to grow tomatillos, grow at least two plants, or have a neighbor grow some as well. I only grew one plant, and had hundreds of flowers but didn't get a single fruit. I later found out that it needs another plant to be properly pollinated.
I don't know if it will stay, but there is a sex site comment to your post that just made me laugh thinking about your post regarding pollination.
@@timothyball3144 I saw lol I think there was some "lost in translation" thing with the bot.
I mean, obviously. They‘re fruits, like tomatoes.
@@Snowiiwastaken Not sure what you mean by that. Tomatoes, peppers, and most plants of the nightshade family carry both male and female parts in their flowers and don't need to be cross pollinated.
I cannot be 100% certain for tomatillos, but you can help hermaphrodite plants (like chilipepper plants) by tickling the flowers. I just lightly tap the flowers every day and at least 50% then produce a fruit!
My grandmother planted Chinese lantern cherries in my childhood home growing up, and it was always magical seeing the bright orange and red lanterns pop out among all of the foliage when we eventually stopped attending to our garden lol. They just stuck around unlike the other plants in the garden, and I would “harvest” them to just admire them.
I love those! And they last for years.
We grew those when I was a kid! They made really pretty floral arrangements!
Can we eat the orange chinese lantern berries?
7:04, Mexican here, I've never seen an oven with a broiler over here, it's way more common to cook them on a skillet (comal).
That's probably true for most people but I've seen videos where they are grilled over a fire in Mexico and for anyone trying to recreate that at home in the US, the easiest way is with a broiler.
Great video, I've eaten tomatillos my whole life. Roasted, boiled, or fried, I've done them all and your salsa verde is spot on! They are also great in a slow cooker/crock-pot, throw a pork roast in there with some tomatillos and your favorite chilies even bell peppers will do and some onion, garlic, and salt to taste, set it in the morning & enjoy a simple and delicious take on a tender "Chile Verde"!for dinner. Eat it as is, with a side of rice beans and tortillas, or shred the pork with a couple of forks for some Chile Verde tacos or burritos, yum! Thanks for the video, I learned some new things about an old favorite!
I'm a bachelor in biology but a pretty amateur chef. I really appreciate you bringing science into your videos, it helps me understand cooking a LOT better than other sources I've used. Plus it makes it more entertaining for me since I get to geek out.
The sticky residue found on the outside of tomatillo plants and on the leaves can be used to make buñuellos. You would boil the tomatillo with the leave and use that water to make the dough for the buñuellos.
As a mexican i had never in my life heard these were harmful at all, raw salsa is extremely common
I love raw tomatillo, I can eat it like an apple. Never heard of it being toxic.
I love listening to Adam explain things I didn't realize I would be fascinated by.
I lived for 8 years in a little town of ex-pats and retirees called Ajijic. Children from San Pedro (a nearby town) came every day with freshly harvested tomatillos. I learned about the "fresh salsa" made out of fresh tomatillos, a bit of onion, garlic, and a ton of really hot peppers (green chile de árbol or serranos or habaneros) that make a beautiful bright sauce.
I've missed you so much Adam. I hope you enjoyed your break
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@@datingzonex6553
Oh my fucking God you’re on TH-cam now
Something I found interesting, and I thought you might too: in Russian, Physalis/Физалис is the name of the entire plant that producess cape gooseberries, not just the husk around said berries. Must be some kind of translation error.
He said that phylasis was the name of the genus, not the husk that is called a calyx. It's just that their calyx in form of a bladder gave them that name of Phylasis.
In France, we call the gooseberry fruit a phylasis ^^
Same in German
@@krankarvolund7771 well, it's both - the physalis genus gets its name from the ancient greek word for bladder, because the calyx kinda looks like a bladder. So, the whole genus of plants is named after their characteristic calyxes.
@Lufa tyhan 4 thanks lufa
Adam really be looking like the guy from the mirror universe.
Chilaquiles Verdes are also another quintessential food with these. It's a mexican staple for breakfasts and quite easy to make. You layer your eggs, cheeses, and avocado atop and enjoy!
My older son likes chilaquiles verdes best, my younger likes red. When they visit , i make what they each like.
I grew tomatillo’s when I lived in PA. They would self seed every year and I’d have volunteers popping up in surprising locations. I never cooked my tomatillos for salsa verde. I always kept them raw and I love the bright flavor of the salsa especially when I add avocado to the salsa. The buttery chunks of avocado with the bright green flavors of the tomatillos, cilantro, and lime and the little bit of heat from the jalapeño and the boldness of the onion to bring it all together! God I want some right now. Also, glad to learn what the sticky feeling was from peeling off the husks.
We Just call it “horno” wich translate to the oven, but what we generally do, is to use a comal wich is a tin piece of metal and put it in the stove and the “asamos”broil the tomatillo
this
Try an air Fryer
We call it "grill" in Spain. El grill del horno.
@@winterishere440 mi mama Mexicana Le llama.
Mechon
I love tomatillos. The roasted ones sometimes have this kind of green apple undertone that’s really delicious
The nice lady from Jauja Cocina Mexicana (surely one of the "grandmas" you mentioned, though her spice tolerance is about a million times higher than any grandma I know) says that after boiling tomatillos you should let them cool off before pureeing them, otherwise they can get bitter. It may just be a tradition with no basis in fact but I've started doing that too.
I had no idea I needed this channel in my life until I discovered it a couple days ago =O
While I don't have the recipe on hand, I made a soup a couple years ago with primarily tomatillos, poblano pepper, and black beans. I'm sure there was some cumin and probably onion in it. Was great.
I make this same black bean soup too, although I use jalapeno peppers instead of poblano and add a couple of chopped garlic cloves. It's great!
Also it would be nice to see Adam attempt some Caribbean dishes. I think curry chicken (or chicken curry for the Guyanese) would be nice to see. Its a cheap easy way to cook. It's also savoury and has a bright green and fresh taste when compared to indian style curry, and its very quick and easy to make.
Me and a group of friends found some unripe ones when we were young, we didn’t know what it was so we called them “air berries” and I really like that name.
holy crap, this guy is awesome. So much info quickly, without any nonsense. I am glad to have found this channel!
Your transition to the sponsor was literally GOLD. so smooth
huh, my dad and I tried making your green enchiladas a while ago and they had a really off-putting bitter soapy kinda flavor. (we didn't include the cilantro because we have the genetics that make it taste bad.) I figured tomatios were the same as cilantro, but maybe I just didn't rinse them with water good enough? I'll definitely have to try it again and see. your recipes in general are always pretty amazing though, we actually made your pot roast recipe (for like the 3rd or 4th time) for dinner yesterday.
Overcooked tomatillos tend to taste bad. If you boil them, pull them out of the boiling water just when they change color. Unlike what Adam said, don't let the skin burst!
You should just try making salsa first probably?
not a bad idea, I'll try to see if I can nail salsa verde first. and I'll try cooking them for an appropriate length as well, thanks for the replies
I haven't watched his recipe, but it sounds to me that you didn't fried the grinded tomatillos. Raw tastes a little bit bitter.
@@EduardoMartinez-fk2pv oo thanks for the suggestion, I'll try frying it too next time
There's a great recipee with tomatillos that my mom taught me: Pollo entomatado! Is basicly a chicken stew with those green tomatillos as a base, no chiles but a hint of cinamon. Very yummy.
Salsa Verde is my go-to when attending a pot-luck. I got a recipe from a friend in San Diego, where it was a huge hit at every party. Those of us in the know would follow her to the food table and swarm the bowl immediately.
If Salsa Verde is as good as you and many other US-based food tubers say, It's a damn shame you can't get tomatillos in the UK.
American version of salsa verde is a bland green mush
im american, honestly ive never had a salsa verde that i liked more than an average red salsa, but that may be just because i wasn't exposed to any. i make salsa (but always red, or with only chiles) fairly often , this video made me rethink it and maybe ill make salsa verde soon.
@@Max_94 Not at authentic mexican restaurants in SoCal.
@@Max_94 America has many, many versions of things.
Its a damn shame there is no mexican food in the UK.
Oooooh, ground cherries are delicious! They turn golden when ripening and make the most wonderful jam filled with tiny seeds that give a delightful texture. You can also just pop the ripe ones in your mouth -- they're sweet little morsels unlike anything else.
I'd love to hear if people have any good substitutes for tomatillos, here in the UK they are fairly difficult/expensive to get a hold of. I've heard that underripe tomatos with lime juice can be a good substitute, but I don't have any real tomatillos to compare it to.
That should work
Unripe green tomatoes have a lot of the same tart/tangy flavors as tomatillos and I use them interchangably when cooking. But the tomatoes will end up more mushy and watery when cooked for a long time.
That's really ironic, because in my country we call them "english tomatoes"
I used underripe tomatoes in a salsa verde recipe not that long ago when I couldn't get any tomatillos and it turned out pretty close.
Under-ripe tomatoes are not really a substitute for tomatillos. Physalis has a different taste profile than tomatoes. It's more like a mix of green tomato with gooseberry (it tastes even more like gooseberry in jam form). Good thing - you can easily grow tomatillos in UK if you have at least some space outside, maybe even on balcony. 15-20L grow bag with universal soil mix, 2 plants, some solid stake or cage - and you'll get at least 1-2 kilos. Just start growing seeds indoors (in late February-early March) to get them a good kickstart.
Heck people even grow them in Siberia now.
Just introduced to this channel by a friend and I'm already obsessed. Awesome stuff :-)
My wife's old fashion Mexican lady and she always makes salsa verde (as we here call it when made with Tomatillos, as opposed to the red salsa typically made with red tomatoes). As I child I never liked it, preferring always the red salsas, but as I grew up I begun to discover incredible flavors in salsa made with tomatillo. Tomatillo salsa is a lot less invasive that red tomatoes salsa, your stomach will thank you for choosing it when you want some spicy salsa.
you can also use them in "Pueblo Green Chili" or "Pork Chili" I once made a variation using Yellow Gooseberries you mentioned, Also Save the husks turn them and the goo into All Natural Bug Repellent ;)
This guy is such a food nerd, and I'm loving it.
Never heard of tomatillos before (Middle Eastern here), so this was a very fun video to watch.
Stay curious and keep on blessing us with these kind of lovely vids
This really raises the question what other uses Adam has for money other than exchanging for goods and services.
So much information yet super engaging! Usually anything with this much info would make me 😴
They are freaking delicious. In México we say "Salsa is half the taco" meaning, that beef tastes pretty much the same in all taco stands, BUT, the salsa makes or breaks the taco.
Finally, good, reliable information on tomatillos. Thank you!
In Mexico we say "tomate" for these, and "jitomate" for a tomato. "Tomatillo" is a TV / movie word used in dubs for people outside of Mexico. So in consideration of other spanish speaking countries we're forced to hear words like "obsequio" instead of "regalo" for "gift", and of course "tomatillo" over and over and over and over and over . . . even tho most dubs are made in Mexico.
7:04 - Stove ovens are used for storing pots and pans. RARELY will anyone use anything in there enough to name it something. We'd probably call it "esta madre". Or "el quemador de arriba" which is more a description than a name.
Esta madre jajajajaj
Exactly what I was thinking. No one in Mexico (except for restaurants) uses a broiler to brown chiles or tomates. We use a comal or a pan, but NEVER put them in the oven. Not that it’s bad idea, we just don’t do it like that. A comal is 10x faster IMO.
In northern mexico we actually do use tomatillo for these
I'm from the state of Sonora in Mexico and we use the word "tomatillo", only in the south they don't use "tomatillo".
Tomates verdes and jitomates (from nahuatl meaning red tomatoes). But we also have tomatillos. These are a variety of very small tomates verdes.
We also use tomate to refer to tomatoes, for instance we say pasta de tomate (tomato paste) and pure de tomate (tomato puree).
AYYYYE, ANOTHER NATHAN APPEARANCE!
As a recent MC alum, I get so excited whenever Dr. Duncan pops up. Ranted his ear off about you 😂
I actually put them in my "mole" also use them in picco de Gallo, shopped in salad and I pickle them. Very versatile product!
México here, we call it a grill (parrilla). Tomatillo is not only used in salsa verde, you can add it to any soup as well!
Although I haven't met anyone that uses their oven for roasting them, people usually either boil them in water or sligtly burn them on the stove.
Fun fact, those 'tomatillos' are called 'tomates' in central mexico and 'tomates' are called 'jitomates' instead, so a tomate could refer to either depending on where you are
The Calyx discussion blew my mind. Easily the most interesting thing I've heard on a food channel in a while.
I just randomly found your channel...but when you ask a question I've asked many times and explain the answer to said question with such facts and humor...I must become a subscriber! ...now where's that enchilada recipe about which you were speaking? ...it's early in the morning but now I want enchiladas. 😋
Loving the scruffy look!
Adults only 🔞 baby-girls.id/angelina?cute-girl
Megan: "Hotter"
Hopi: "Sweeter"
Joonie: "Cooler"
Yoongi: "Butter"
Asi con toy y sus mañas no se la lease que escriba bien mamon hay nomas pa ra reirse un rato y no estar triste y estresado.por la vida dura que se vive hoy .
Köz karaş: ''Taŋ kaldım''
Erinder: ''Sezimdüü''
Jılmayuu: ''Tattuuraak''
Dene: ''Muzdak''
Jizn, kak krasivaya melodiya, tolko pesni pereputalis.
Aç köz arstan
Bul ukmuştuuday ısık kün bolçu, jana arstan abdan açka bolgon.
Uyunan çıgıp, tigi jer-jerdi izdedi. Al kiçinekey koyondu gana taba algan. Al bir az oylonboy koyondu karmadı. ''Bul koyon menin kursagımdı toyguza albayt'' dep oylodu arstan.
Arstan koyondu öltüröyün dep jatkanda, bir kiyik tigi tarapka çurkadı. Arstan aç köz bolup kaldı. Kiçine koyondu emes, çoŋ kiyikti jegen jakşı dep oylodu.#垃圾
the most important question for the countries without tomatillos: how to substitute them in recipes?
Green tomatoes plus a squeeze of lime juice. Failing that, green peppers with lime juice. Having said that they're very easy to go grow indoors, so that might be worth a try.
I add tomatillos to my stewed okra. It's pretty great
oh shit thats a good idea im definitely trying that
Washing and Roasting/ boiling is a must. Boiling helps remove the acidity/bitterness better than roasting. Adding ‘Knorr chicken bouillon’ like salt and a little avocado oil helps a salsa verde. Roasting the garlic and all salsa ingredients is recommended because it mellows out sharp flavors like onion and makes things a little sweeter and smokier.
The light purple ones, or stripped green-purple combination are the best tomatillos. They have a sweeter & stronger flavor that enhances your salsas or dishes like nothing else. Love them.
The part about a lot of tomatillos being grown in Poland seems questionable (or at least outdated) to me. Never in my life have i seen a tomatillo being sold in grocery store here, or grown in a garden. Which is sad tbh, because I was always curious how they taste.
Seems that there's a strain that was bred specifically for colder European climate and it was developed in Poland. The Amarylla Tomatillo. Not sure where he got it being widespread.
One of my twins loves fresh salsa verde and the other prefers it roasted. The frying in a bit of oil is such a great tip! Now I can skip the oven roasting and make one batch. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Adam, 1st time watcher (and new subscriber). Thank you for the tomatillo lesson. I use the tomatillos I grow in soups, like an awesome pozole verde with whatever stock & meats I have left over (chicken, pork). It's basically a mix of ingredients & techniques between a chili tortilla or pozole soup & salsa verde enchiladas (thank you TH-cam Mexican grandmothers). Delicious either way! Can't wait to dive into other videos.
I’ve been to a fancy restaurant (of the $50+ dollars per plate genre) where the menu describes groundcherries as “rare Peruvian pichu berries” and it was emphatically the worst meal I’ve ever eaten
Sounds like they got you haha
well that happend when you eat peruvian meal
I have a raised bed full of volunteer tomatillos after not planting a garden this year.
Once you have them, you always have them.
And I use them raw in my tomato salsa.
Thank you for not murdering or misrepresenting green enchiladas.
"Tomatillos aren't only good for salsa verde" he says as he proceeds to only show how to cook variants of salsa verde.
@@elle4702 ratio
Except that’s not at all what I said.
After hearing all sorts of things about how good salsa Verde and tomatillos are I was severely disappointed when I finally tasted them. And I lived in Mexico when I was a kid!
Idk, maybe I'm convinced. Though when I lived in Texas I needed to pick up guac one time from the store. Accidentally got this tomatillo-infused guac called "guacatillo". It was awful, I hated it. Maybe I'd reconsider for a different application.
Best botany lesson I had in a long time ❤
Your segues into the promo are always so smooth lol
i live in south az, i always love finding out more about the culture that's all around me!
I think this pandemic has taught people the importance of multiple streams of income, unfortunately having a job doesn't mean security rather having different investments is the real deal.
@Linda Smith You're right, but i will advice everybody who is into cryptos to Stick with ETH and BTC as much as you can. everyone sells when it starts to fall, which some points it will, the dream may be lost because it being too volatile for companies to get behind.
Investments are the stepping Stones to success, I wanted to trade shiba but got confused by the fluctuations in price
@Nicholas Ordnacaoga I was able to see that he is a registered trader, cause I don't believe 😩 anything I see online but I'm definitely shocked that he is real, how do I reach him please ?
@Nicholas Ordnacaoga thanks on he's info, I'll get to him right away
So pleased seeing my broker talked about on TH-cam, This is exactly how I got recommendations about Mr Edward Miller At first I was a bit skeptical but eventually I gave he's a trail with my little invesment I got huge profit.
I've always been skeptical of tomatillos being poisonous, it never really made sense to me. I've even heard some claim thats its dangerous to touch raw tomatillos, and you should handle them with gloves on.
Yo ive heard the gloves thing too. People say it causes chemical burns. I personally didnt get any when ive cooked with them but i want to know who started that rumor and if there is any truth behind it
I live along the border of Mexico in Arizona and we use tomatillos quite a bit down here. I do the boil them with onions and garlic to make my salsa.
Hey Adam Ragusea, I am a certified food worker, and I watch your stuff. For reference, I went to culinary school/vocation school, then finished an apprenticeship, working in the industry. I think your videos are great.
Hey Adam, you should do a video on a brief history of preserving foods, and modern food preservatives/chemicals. Thanks
4:31 "Im dying, Im dying! No, Im just kidding" HAHA i love your content. This video was both fun and informational, and I cant wait to pick some tomatillos up at the grocery store!
The segues on this channel are smooth as silk
Boil serrano pepper (must be Serrano peppers) when ready add tomatillos
And keep an eye on them you don't want the tomatillos to burst, immediately take
Chiles, tomatillos ,garlic clove, cilantro, salt to taste and blend high speed (cover the top/lid with a kitchen towel and hold down) one minute, add oil, I like
canola, a steady ribbon of oil slowly, it will change the color quickly like guacamole, add cilantro.
This salsa verde taquera is so good on
everything.
Thank you very much for this. I learned much! I've used Tomatillos in my salsa verde and have done both the roasting and the boiling method. Good stuff! Now I can impress people with the word "Calyx"!
My parents grow a bunch In their backyard. Always giving me loads to make green sauce and enchiladas! Great video definitely learned alot from my families sacred fruit lol.
A very popular restaurant chain here in Utah (and in many other parts of the West) is Cafe Rio. Probably not super authentic, but very tasty! They make a creamy tomatillo salad dressing that I would drown almost any food in if I could. Never having identified the flavor of a tomatillo on it’s own, I don’t know if this dressing tastes like tomatillos or just the cilantro which is also in it. Either way, my favorite way to eat the tomatillo!
Cave man Adam is the best thing I’ve seen since 2022
I grew these for quite a few seasons, they were amazing.
I had never heard of tomatillos or salsa verde until I lived with a guy of Mexican heritage in Texas. He was an excellent chef and introduced me to the stuff. I haven't had tomatillos any other way yet, but I absolutely love salsa verde now.
They go well chopped up as veg in stews and thick soups. I also use them in salsa roja as well as salsa verde. Normally one tomatillo for every 3 to four tomatoes. Adds a bit of a different nuance of flavour and makes the salsa a bit less watery as the tomatillos have a lot more pectin than tomatoes.
@@sethbush509 Oh, those sound like wonderful ways to use them! I especially like the idea of using them in a thick soup! I can imagine that they would add a nice touch to red salsa, too. Thank you for the suggestions! 🤗
Love your videos, but you got something wrong: the part of a phone fruit we eat is the hypanthium cup, which is the outer covering of the ovaries (the core, with the seeds). The sepal attached to the rim of the cup, and is that little dried spot at the bottom of the fruit.
I’m Mexican and a home cook. I’ll explain the differences between the salsa verdes: the most common is not the roasted version (which is not usually grilled but burnt directly on the fire or using a thin pan called comal), but the raw version where the tomatillo and every other ingredient is actually raw. The burnt version is used also as salsa directly. The boiled version is used as a base for many stews. The fried version is the one most commonly used for enchiladas and other dishes where the salsa verde is a warm sauce
I didn't have to plant one tomatillo seed this year. They came up and volunteered from last year. So many plants just from the throw-aways.
That whole calyx thing blew my mind and I will be sharing that trivia at some point.
I love the groundberries.
I love foraging for these little marbles near the riverbank when I was a kid. Or just straight up in the jungle.
Man, I missed my kid energy...
Tomatillos can also be the main ingredient in fresh salsa verde (a la pico de gallo). Use the same components as the roasted version, but raw! Instead of blending, finely dice everything with a knife. So so good!
I love.. that you used the Spaceballs version of the chest burster. Well done.
Looking forward to the post-youtube collection of these videos on your site's archive that don't need "wtf even is" to get views. IT'd be so refreshing to have this entire series just have normal titles, and a normal video start. "what are tomatillos?" cool, that's the kind of learning I wish youtube fostered.
Thanks! I did wonder what, exactly, tomatillos are, except for the main ingredient in delicious, delicious salsa verde.
I dont know if I ever had salsa verde. I bought a jar a couple months ago but I think i've only ever reached for a red salsa. Going to Mexico in 3 days though so I'll make sure to try some there.
Brings me back to high-school when I worked on a farm in Indiana and these would grow literally everywhere. We actually had to pull them out like weeds from time to time.
Heard he used to sell them to people who made salsa out of them.