Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Seeing Green:Tomatillos

There will be no shortage of salsa verde for us for this upcoming year- our tomatillos seem to be picking up the slack for the tomatoes!
We have 6 different tomatillo plants- not counting the four “volunteer” plants that have sprouted in various places in the yard. I planted 3 different varieties this year, and so far I don’t have a preference in flavor (which means next year I can just stick with one variety- yay!).
Tomatillos do very well in Sacramento’s heat, which is not surprising considering they grow like weeds in Mexico. Just like with tomatoes, the size of the fruit can vary on one plant- from the size of a marble, but most commonly it’s between a golf ball and a mandarin. One thing to remember about growing tomatillos is to plant at least two! They are “self-incompatible” so you need at least two plants in order to get any fruit. If you set the plants out at a young age, they may get chomped by bugs(well, mine do), so I plant at least three just in case I lose one!
The fruit is picked when the husk (I call them lanterns) has started to split open, or the fruit has completely filled its husk. The flavor can vary based on what stage they are in. A tomatillo still inside its husk will be tangy in flavor with a slight lemon/grass taste and is lovely bright green. One that has busted out of its husk will taste much sweeter with a slight pineapple flavor and will be either a lighter green or pale yellow color. Of course, coloring will also depend on the variety you’re growing- I have a purple variety growing that has apple green colored fruit with purple shoulders (see picture above). The flavor is best when the fruit is still green, however, unless you are willing to “fondle” every single tomatillo you have growing on a daily basis, it’s much easier to just look for husks that are starting to open.

One thing I love about tomatillos is their long storage life. In the husk, they can last up to two weeks in the refrigerator. If you remove the husk before refrigeration, they can last even longer. Since I like to only have to make salsa verde once a year in a huge pot, I remove the husk, wash the sticky residue off of them, pat them dry, and then freeze my harvest into Ziploc bags until I’m ready to make it. I prefer to freeze them whole out of pure laziness, but some people cut them into smaller sizes. Freezing them whole retains more vitamins and keeps them from losing flavor.
Don’t have enough tomatillos for a batch of salsa verde? You’ve got several options. 1.) Buy some at the grocery store. Most grocery stores carry a small quantity of tomatillos in their produce department. They are usually still in their husks, and are located near the peppers in my grocery store. 2.) You can buy canned whole tomatillos at the grocery store as well, usually located where you’d buy diced chiles and salsa. 3.) Use green tomatoes in their place. This option is especially helpful at the end of the tomato season when you’ve got a bunch of tomatoes on your plants that you KNOW aren’t going to ripen.

As for what to do with all of those tomatillo’s when you’ve got them- salsa verde! If you’d like to try canning your tomatillo salsa, check out this recipe on Lelo in Nopo’s website. I made it last year and it was fairly easy. Not a big enchilada fan? There are other uses for tomatillos besides making salsa verde. I like to slice them and throw them on the grill to serve as a nice simple side dish. You can also add some chopped tomatillos while making rice, when the rice is cooked, drain excess water, add a little lime juice and some chopped cilantro. If you make your own tzatziki for falafel or gyros, try adding chopped tomatillos instead of cucumbers.

11 comments:

  1. Yum,I love tomatillos. Looks like you have an amazing harvest!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great post Carri. I love Salsa Verde & many of it's companions. Might need to expand The Redneck Garden a little more next year.

    ReplyDelete
  3. So, do you know anything about "ground cherries"? I've read about them and would love to try them... can't tell from what I've read whether they are just a variety of tomatillo that is sweeter, or a separate but closely related plant.

    Also - did you start the seeds yourself?

    Good post!

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is great! Very informative...if I had tomatillos. Mmmmm salsa verde.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Wow, Carri! When you tweeted about lots of tomatillos you meant it! Still no sign on my plants - and last year was total failure, too. Some sites say that if the plants can make it through to early fall the cooler temperatures will allow the fruit to set.

    I looked at Sacramento's weather report and notice that while your daytime temperatures are as hot or hotter than ours, your overnight temperatures look unbelievably pleasant to an Austinite. Low sixties! We barely hit 77 or 78 before dawn and the numbers rise. Our plants never get any rest!

    Enjoy your bounty!

    Annie at the Transplantable Rose

    ReplyDelete
  6. Annie- this is an abnormal year for us with weather and fruit set. We've had a very cool summer for Sacramento, and my tomatillos started setting much earlier than normal. Last year I didn't start picking until August, with the bulk of fruit in September. This year I started picking in June- and the plants are showing no signs of slowing down. My biggest problem is the plants typically get HUGE by August and the plants are so floppy that they struggle holding the fruit. I cage them as I would tomatoes, but I also plant two right next to each other in the same cage to sort of support one another. I do the same if I'm planting them in a large pot- I guess my tomatillos prefer the buddy system?! They do seem to be heavier feeders than the tomatoes though. It's been about two weeks since I've fed them (liquid fish and sea kelp) and I'm noticing some lanterns are turning yellow and have fruit the size of marble in them. Those will not recover, so it's just easier to pull them off now.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Kelly- I've grown various ground cherries (and yes, tomatillos are considered groundcherries). Last year I grew pineapple tomatillos which were much smaller than these, and therefore didn't produce as much fruit. The pineapple ground cherry is suppose to be one of the best for making tarts/pies. I never got enough fruit to try that- so I just threw the ones I had in with various salsa recipes.

    As for seeds- I grew Purple Coban and Verde- both from Baker Creek (rareseeds.com). The other variety I grew was Grande Rio Verde, and I believe that one was from Thompson Morgan. I started my seeds for the tomatillos in late January. They were one of the first plants I put out in the garden this year as they were growing up into my grow lights in the laundry room and had started flowering. I think they got planted this year in early May.

    They will reseed, but I wouldnt consider them invasive. I have one seedling thats growing clear on the other side of my backyard from where my plants were last year. I have another that's growing in the front yard (and I didn't plant them in my front yard last year!).

    ReplyDelete
  8. Very detailed and informative article. I especially appreciate the information freezing and preserving them. I'm just starting to harvest my first tomatillos (I don't have nearly as much as you) and I'm excited to make my first batch of salsa verde tonight.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Wow...very informative post. Mine are still small...but I'm going to go out and fondle them here soon, to see if any are ready. I have 4 or 5 huge plants, and so far they are growing vigorously. I want to try making the green sauce, as well as salsa verde. I think I will give them some fish emulsion today, since you say they are heavy feeders. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Thanks Carri for all of the info.

    I am hoping the warm weather continues and that mine get big enough to pick and actually eat. I planted them specifically to make salsa verde, but I am worried that my plants are flowering and not setting. The garden store where I get my fishy fertilizer says to use a blossom set spray on them, but not sure I am going for that just yet.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Thank you! I was given a couple pounds of fresh tomatillos, and after looking through every cookbook I own, could only find salsa verde recipes. I wanted to do something different with these. I'll try your rice suggestion, and grill the rest and see how they come out. Thanks again! P.S. I just googled, "what to do with tomatillos besides make salsa," and your blog came up. That's how I found you. And, small world, I'm in Sac too! :)

    ReplyDelete