Why tomatillos aren't just little green tomatoes (and why they're awesome)
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- Опубликовано: 9 янв 2022
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My old enchiladas verdes recipe: • Green Enchiladas
1993 journal article from Poland investigating the safety of tomatillos: pbsociety.org.pl/journals/ind...
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.nih.gov/pmc/arti... 
Хобби
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 RUclips 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
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?
😭😂
Grew up in a Mexican household (moms Mexican). I can tell you that both of the ways you're making salsa verde are correct. There are some minor differences for taste but on the whole you've nailed the process and product. Thank you for accurately representing part of my culture.
is there even a "wrong" way?
@@windhelmguard5295 burn the shit out of it
Thank your culture for so much yumminess
@@windhelmguard5295there most definitely is.
There is no wrong way, the hell are you talking about? My dad is literally a chef and I grew up visiting my grandparents in Jalisco every summer. So I can talk….
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!
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)
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.
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
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!
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.
Tomatillos are the "secret" ingredient in my homemade chicken soup, lol. I just dice up a dozen or so and toss them in towards the end (they cook fast, if I'm adding noodles I put them in before the noodles and add noodles when the tomatillos are mostly done) they are great to grow in areas with short growing seasons, and they come back! We lived at 7500ft and had no problems with them.
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.
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
The Romanian anecdote of the episode: We grow a whole lot of tomatillo, we call them gogonele. We primarily lacto-ferment them and eat them year-round just like you would pickles. It's in my personal top 3 pickled substances (after cauliflower and watermelon)
.....PICKLED WATERMELON?!! Im intensely curious
@@alexg1882 It's like a dwarf watermelon variety that is used for pickling and it's harvested like 1-2 weeks before being fully ripe (because the inners a fully ripe fruit basically disappear when lacto-fermenting). The finished product is just a tad sweet, very tangy and the texture is very different. If fresh watermelon is like juicy soft and pillow-y, the pickle is also juicy, but a bit tougher and chewy.
I have pickled tomatillos before and can verify they are great this way.
Do you have any recipes? I love pickles and have never tried pickled tomatillo. And my attempts to pickle watermelon and cauliflower were disappointing. I want to try Romanian pickle recipes!
I'm..... did.............. but......... PICKLED WATERMELON?!?!
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
I made tamales this Christmas on my own for the first time. I had no recipe, I just went off of what I remembered seeing my parents do growing up. We always boiled the tomatillos till they were just turning soft and then tossed them into the blender or ground them in the molcajete, as you showed here, combining with other dried chiles as the base of our tamales.
I was skeptical all the way up to steaming, but in the end they turned out great.
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.
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.
De mi Rancho a Tu Cocina has some good tomatillo recipes. The Mexican "Abuelita" (as I like to call her) built an entire channel on just cooking her family recipes out of her home. Seriously some of the most quality/wholesome content I've ever watched. I'd def recommend a watch if you just need some cuteness in your life, even if you can't understand Spanish.
Thanks so much for the recommendation!!! She looks SO CUTE and like such a great cook!!!
Agreed. Awesome channel to learn the real mexican recipes of our abuelitas. LOVE IT.
My fiancé is currently making me some of your empanadas. He found your channel in the last few months and it has really renewed his passion for cooking. I have had so much homemade pasta recently lol so thank you for what you do!
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.
2:28 I'm gonna be nerdy, but this is an inflorescence of an Asteraceae plant, i.e. a composite flower. While they look similar, they are of different origin and are actually called calyculi (or false calyces)
Amazing.
The world of information is vast and confusing.
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)
We planted 15 tomatillo plants (started in our greenhouse) and ended up with about 20 volunteers from our compost - we have SO MANY tomatillos purple & green varieties! This is the first year we've ever eaten one raw, I can't believe how delicious they are, kind of reminds me of a gooseberry. I canned 4 batches of salsa verde then blended and freeze dried the huge volume that I still had left. It's Montana, end of September and they're still growing - hoping our pigs & chickens think they taste as good as we do!
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.
I love when you focus on these different plants and vegetables. I’m an urban farmer and these video are super well done and interesting, I always learn something new!
This channel is amazing there's so much research that goes into every single video I can't even imagine working that hard to make something
Tomatillos also work great as a substitute for unripe/green tomatoes when you want fried green tomatoes and green tomatoes aren't available.
Slice into decently thick rounds. Bread with preferred breading (cornmeal is traditional, I prefer panko) you can use buttermilk and/or eggwash to help the breading stick, shallow/pan fry in the fat of your choice (bacon or similar fat works great, most oils will do just fine, I've known people that will cook their breakfast bacon, and then immediately fry some tomatoes for part of their lunch).
I then like to whack together a quick fresh pepper jelly for dipping.
I know plenty of people who fry tomatoes immediately after bacon (it also deglazes the pan great for whoever is washing up) but I don’t know anyone with the willpower to leave them for lunch…..
Yeah! I was hoping someone would bring this up, I like to make em to top my fried pork chops when I'm making a frying mess anyway. I also really like it with breadcrumbs and parmesan, or ande's hot fish breading, whatever's in the pantry.
pepper jelly? that just sounds like *chili jam* with extra steps! *HAIYAAAAA-*
I fry them all the time. So good!
Hey, in Spanish we actually say “tatemar”(inf) and “tatemado” (part) to refer to the dry toast that darkens and softens mainly chiles, tomatillos and onions. It’s usually done completely dry and after that, in the “molcajete” or food processor is when oil, salt and other ingredients are added.
Also, is far more likely to cook the tomatillo (and potentially chiles or onions) and then adding some raw ingredients that never get cooked.
Anyway, do it as you prefer.
Not-so-mexican stuff:
“Tatemar” is a Mexican synonym of “escalivar” in Spain. But actually “escalivar” is almost-exclusively done for “escalivada” (a dish/tapa that is made by dry-toasting eggplants, Spanish onions and peppers till soft then season and consume as desired (normally seasoned with salt&pepper and olive oil and consumed in toast)). Try it!
"Spanish" is completely different from Mexican cuisine that's for sure,
and clearly, Mexicans in different regions cook differently, but I don't know what you mean when you say "It's usually done COMPLETELY DRY"? Check out ----> ruclips.net/user/results?search_query=Salsa+Verde+en+molcajete
@@loncho5079 we must have opposite algorithms, they appear as a dry cook process in most of the videos (with dry at mean the beggining, since tomatillos usually let a lot of moisture out while cooking, leaving a wet dry pan/tray)
@@eis5146 Maybe so, because when I first read "dry toast" I thought you were referring to "bread" as in the bread/toast that is often used to thicken moles. And when I read "completely dry" I thought you were referring to "dried chilies" like these ---> ruclips.net/video/Q84DIv3mkCU/видео.html ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I love listening to Adam explain things I didn't realize I would be fascinated by.
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!
Its funny how you said we grow a lot of tomatillos in Poland, yet they are impossible to find in stores. Last time i saw them was like 5 years ago :D
Nah, we have a lot of Physalis in stores like Lidl but not tomatillos. It's Miechunka peruwiańska (Physalis peruviana L.), the orange one.
@@matheff71 i may be unreliable, cause I don't live in a big city, but never have i seen tomatillos (or anything close to it) in any supermarked
@@bzymek7054 same in Warsaw, I've been to dozens of big stores and never in my life seen a tomatillo :(
Maybe we export it just like our money
All of you are polish and yet you speak english with one another
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.
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.
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
Adam really be looking like the guy from the mirror universe.
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.
Just introduced to this channel by a friend and I'm already obsessed. Awesome stuff :-)
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.
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.
Thanks, always wondered why Cape Gooseberries are so sticky. Ever since I’ve started to wash them before eating, they’re better tbh.
Fun fact: Tomatillos have two genders. Learned that the hard way when I tried to grow some on my balcony without getting any results (Living in an otherwise Tomatillio-less country).
i'm told tomatillxs have at least sixty genders so make sure you ask for pronouns before you make salsx vxrde
@@grimscar LOL
I don't get your comment?
holy crap, this guy is awesome. So much info quickly, without any nonsense. I am glad to have found this channel!
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
Best botany lesson I had in a long time ❤
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.
Adam i think you like the acidity in your food. I am from turkey and you should check out the
"sour pomegranate sauce" i dont know if its specific to turkish people but we put it on almost every salad and it takes the salad to another level.
I've missed you so much Adam. I hope you enjoyed your break
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
@@datingzonex6553
Oh my fucking God you’re on RUclips now
The amount of work you put into your videos Adam amazes me!
Thank you! This video helped me understand my lifelong preference for underripe bananas! I didn't ever know why I prefer them almost green until you provided the explanation of the bitterness in unripened tomatillos. 💡
Living in Germany I've only ever seen the small yellow fruits sold as physalis in supermarkets, never the big green one. I did not realise you can cook them like veggies and make salsa 😳 that's amazing
As someone in the UK, the only time I've heard of a tomatillo before, is by confusingly following one of your previous recipes, thank you for explaining what I'm missing out on!
I never see a English Channel talking about tomatillos as deep as you did, my Mexican pride jump of joy 🥲, thanks for sharing you knowledge to the world because most people think that tomatillo is a green tomato, and that is SAD 😔
Salsa Verde is so good. I've got some in my fridge right now! I love the deep dives in to individual ingredients on this channel.
Hey Adam, here in Poland we eat mostly Physalis peruviana L. I think. You can find them in bigger supermarkets. They are orange, not green. But it's Physalis nonetheless. Fun fact, it's called Miechunka, but in sold just as Physalis.
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.
@@datingzone5984 thanks lufa
Your transition to the sponsor was literally GOLD. so smooth
I love your videos. I learn so much on the topic, and then you teach me something else from your sponsors videos!
I've made and eaten a lot of fresh salsa verde (ie not cooked). I love it. So refreshing summer taste. Def not toxic! Cooked is good to but... fresh: so amazing. Tomatillos, chiles, onions and salt. Perfect.
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!
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 RUclips Mexican grandmothers). Delicious either way! Can't wait to dive into other videos.
Nice to watch you again,
It's been a while
Thanks for the incredible lesson of Botany, however I found the Daisy flowers are not the best example to explain the flower parts, since the colorful pieces are each one a flower (male flowers) and those parts in the center are hermaphrodite flowers, this is the wonderful family of Asteraceae
Thnx a lot for the new video, as always I can't ask for more, and I can't say more to describe my love to this channel
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.
I grew potted groundcherries on my porch last year. Absolutely delicious, really fun to grow.
I love the texture and sharp citrus flavors. I've tried adding it to many different styles of food, with positive results.
The boiled version is the one that me and my family does. I love it that way and it's faster and easier to cook and clean. Props to you for showing it, lots of foodies only like the more difficult styles because "it's more gourmet" or something.
I do think having the chillies, onion and tomatillos charred give the salsa a lovelly flavour... Tatemar is giving a new seasoning to the Dish !
As a small child, I refused to eat apples or pears unless an adult had peeled them for me.
Now I kinda like the peel. Or rather, it doesn’t bother me at all, and it kinda adds some texture to the biting and chewing experience.
Okay I’m hooked. ❤️ the voiceovers as well. Lovely enunciation. Good recipes. Age 65 & always learning!
Your scientific approach to your videos is fascinating. Wish more videos were as educational!
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.
Fun fact those ground cherries are called "ciplukan" (pronounced as chi-ploo-kæn), they look like mini pumpkins with a lot of seeds in it and are naturally sweet and we normally snack on them as a whole or sucking the juices out, or is used in some recipes and they are actually high in Vit C X3
I grew one plant last year and it grew incredbily well and lush. Took forever to produce fruit, and even when that happened, they never got fully ripe/larger. I now know that one should plant a "companion" tomatillo plant nearby as the tomatillo is not "self-fruitful). Also, they don't like too much nitrogen. I had been putting compost tea at the base once a month, hence all the foliage. Looking forward to this summer to see how they turn out with this knowledge.
I had no idea I needed this channel in my life until I discovered it a couple days ago =O
We made fresh verde salsa at my old job, and one day I decided to try eating a tomatillo. There were like 3 Latino coworkers around and they all looked at me like I was crazy. Apparently none of them had ever even considered eating one straight.
It's delicious tbh. I'd totally eat them raw, like often.
You do?
What do they taste like?
@@carloszenteno it's been a while since I've had one. But if I remember, it was a light and kinda sour taste, kind of like a green apple but more savory. Texturewise it's like a firm plum.
I'll have to try using these if I can get them. I made your empanadas yesterday, but substituted in yellow bell peppers and poblanos. Turned out pretty well, I think. Definitely want to try making salsa verde at some point.
Tomatillo salsa is bomb. Tangy, citric, and still has some kick with jalapeños.
Every Mexican restaurant/person makes their salsa differently. Red hot sauces vary a lot from consistency, spice, flavor so I often order salsa verde because it's usually a solid choice that doesn't vary as much as red salsa.
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.
Your segues into the promo are always so smooth lol
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 ;)
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
I actually put them in my "mole" also use them in picco de Gallo, shopped in salad and I pickle them. Very versatile product!
So much information yet super engaging! Usually anything with this much info would make me 😴
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.
The bright sourness from a tomatillo surprised me the first time I picked one out from the grocery store!
That sourness makes them great added raw to a salad
I always love these videos, I learn so much about cooking. And a surprising amount about growing plants too.
Finally, good, reliable information on tomatillos. Thank you!
Fascinating video! I never really knew much about tomatillos so this is very cool to learn. Thank you Adam for making this fun and entertaining videos.
Am I the only one who thinks Calyx would make a cool name? 😅
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.
My local grocery stores don't carry them, but when I lived in a state where they do offer them in Produce one of my neighbors grew her own and always raved about them. I never knew what to do with them, until now. Must try, would certainly enjoy it.
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.
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.
Thank you for this, as someone who's never seen these in real life, this is very helpful - I have been wondering for a while now.
I love the information. Thank you so much.
Started growing Physalis (that's how we call all varieties to which Tomatillo and Ground cherry belong) last year. I can't say that I'm a big fan of salsa verde, mostly because it has short shelf life. But I'm definitely loving tomatillo jam with hot peppers - nice stuff to eat during the winter season.
Great video, but a major botanical flaw. At 2:28 when you explained flower morphology you used as an example a "daisy-like" plant or Asteraceae botanical family. Asteraceae are characterized by having an inflorescence (a "composite flower" composed of a lot of individual flowers together) therefore that was not a flower but a composite flower organ named capitula. The green part of this capitula is called a receptacle. Calyx would be present in each individual flower (imagine a sunflower, each seed came from one flower) within this family is infer with mean sin soldered with the feminine part. When calyx is soldered to the femenine part of the flower we called infer ovarium, oposite to super as in tomatillos.
I hope I explained correctly, I know this is an obscure nomenclature and your video objective was another and all your videos are awesome. But I'm sure you will like to know this. Keep up this great work.
I don’t think we have a proper translation for broiler/grill… people just use horno=oven and refer to the whole appliance, then use the english word broiler for that specific function of the oven, at least where I live.
We usually roast them in a pan or comal.
The segues on this channel are smooth as silk
Hey Adam, you really gave me some great information on this subject. I do however, wish you had spent more time on this fruit. I love your videos & glad to be a subscriber.