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Buying a plant start of an unknown vegetable variety can be risky business.  Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.  This is a story about a winner.

Coming off of a successful tomatillo experience in 2008, we decided to expand our horizons this year. A few months ago we drove down to Territorial Seed Company in Cottage Grove to pick up starts, primarily tomatoes.  While browsing their selection of tomatillos, we ran across a plant with an intriguing name and description.  A Pineapple Ground Cherry.  It was noted as having a unique flavor equal to its name, and characteristics much like a tomatillo.

Over the past 2 weeks, we have been harvesting.  As advertised, it is seriously sweet and does have a pineapple flavor.  The fruit is much smaller than a tomatillo, even smaller than a common cherry tomato.  Actually, more like a cranberry.  They do have the characteristic tomatillo husk, so factor that in with its size - they are labor intensive to extract in mass quantity.  But worth it.

Harvest is easy.  When the fruit is ripe it drops on the ground.  They are fine on the ground at least a few days, as the husks keep them well protected.  The process is as easy as lifting the vines and raking them with your hand.  

After husking, I ended up with several cups worth of them total.  I decided to substitute them into a Salsa Verde recipe from Weber’s Big Book of Grilling.   I’m not a stickler for measurements (and have a bad memory to boot), but here’s roughly what it involved, that I can remember:

          4 cups pineapple ground cherries

          2 small onions

          extra virgin olive oil

          1 fresh chile pepper, most of the seeds removed

          2 cloves garlic

          2 tbsp lime juice

          1/2 cup cilantro

          1/2 tsp salt

          1/2 tsp ground black pepper

Wash vegetables.  Slice onions into 1/4″ thick rings.  Coat with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.  Grill on medium/high heat for approximately 10 minutes, until outsides are browned and insides are soft.   Remove from grill and allow to cool before adding to food processor.  Add remaining ingredients and run processor until ingredients are well mixed and to desired level of chunkiness.  

Grab yourself a cerveza, and enjoy your salsa as a dip for tortilla chips or as a topping on any number of related dishes.

I also used this basic recipe with traditional green tomatillos, as identified in the Weber book.  In that case a little brown sugar addition is recommended - about 1 tbsp.

Tags: Ground Cherry