Unknown fruit: pepino or melon pear

There are those fruits that we may have seen somewhere, but we cannot always identify them immediately. The pepino or melon pear is one of them. Not a regular fruit that you see in all supermarkets, but this fruit is certainly known among hobby growers and the specialist store usually has this fruit on their shelves. What kind of fruit is it, is it a healthy fruit and how can it be applied in our diet?

Pepino, the base

The pepino, officially solanum muricatum, better known as the melon pear, is a soft sweet fruit. The name directly indicates the taste of the fruit. The soft sweet flesh under the thin skin, which is light yellow in color, tastes like a combination of melon and pear. The shape is usually oval, the size of the pepino is on average about 9 by 12 centimeters. Sometimes you can also see this fruit almost round.

This plant is ideal for growing yourself. You can start sowing between January and April. When the plants are about five centimeters, they can be repotted and can go outside around mid-May (it must be above ten degrees Celsius during the night hours). Preferably place the plants in a sunny spot. Of course you can also let them grow indoors. Because the plant grows "horizontally", it does need some space. You must take this into account when you are going to repot the plants.

You can eat the melon pear as a peeled fruit because of the soft sweet flesh. You can also cut the fruit half with the skin and then spoon out the pulp. Furthermore, the melon pear can be used as jam for sandwiches, in various dishes and simply squeezed to drink as a juice (for example mixed with the wet cucumber and some orange juice). Some examples of how to use the pepino in dishes.

A spring salad with some mixed lettuce, some halved yellow tomatoes and walnuts, a few small balls of goat cheese, a little fresh basil and a lot of cubes of pepino makes the salad nice and fresh. Great for lunch with a few pieces of wholemeal baguette or with white fish for dinner.

As a snack you can divide the melon pear into pieces and mix it with some other fruits in a small fruit cocktail. For example kiwi, banana and strawberries to add some sweetness. You can make the whole thing a bit more bitter by adding some bunches of small red berries. Not too much so as not to let it dominate.

As a starter, the fruit can easily be combined in a fish cocktail with, for example, crab. Make a sauce with some truffle mayonnaise and some small piece of crab, add some salt and pepper to taste and sprinkle a few drops of lemon over it. Add some pieces of melon pear and some larger pieces of crab. A mint leaf completes it. The crab can also be replaced by, for example, crayfish.

The pepino, on average no more than eighty kilocalories, contains a limited amount of vitamin B and a substantial amount of vitamin C (35 mg per 100 g). Furthermore, there is also iron and calcium in the fruit. The large amount of vitamin C is particularly striking.

This relatively unknown exotic fruit can be combined in various ways with various dishes. The fruit contains a remarkable amount of vitamin C and has a fresh, soft sweet taste. This makes the fruit an addition to a healthy diet.