Yellow-orange or yellow-green fruits, which look like pumpkin and melon at the same time, can be observed more and more often on the shelves of large stores, but only smaller. It looks like papaya. This tropical berry, which is considered the birthplace of Mexico, is also growing in Brazil, Nigeria, India, Indonesia and in several other countries. These large berries, the weight of some varieties of which can reach 6-8 kg, are often called the fruits of melon or breadfruit. Their flavor is similar to melon when they are fresh, and when baked, they smell almost like bread. If you have an eye on this fruit and intend to purchase it, you need to know how to eat papaya.
Fetal Information
The fruits of papaya fall into the category of berries. Cutting them, you will find small seeds in the center. They have a specific bitter taste, but are good for digestion. They can be dried and used as seasoning instead of black pepper.
Papaya skin is rather thin, but inedible.
Edible pulp in consistency, taste and aroma like a melon. Some people think that the smell of ripe papaya is similar to the aroma of overripe raspberries. Others catch the smell of baked pumpkin in this smell.
Papaya pulp contains many useful elements, including a unique substance that promotes better absorption of protein foods. This substance, similar to the effect on gastric juice, called papain.
Also papaya helps to strengthen the immune system, normalize the level of glucose in the blood, improve its clotting.
Small varieties of papaya are most often used as a fruit. Large varieties of this berry are used as vegetables, but they are usually not imported into our country. Ripe papaya is quite soft to the touch, has a peel of yellow or yellow-orange color. In unripe fruit peel greenish. If the product does not have time to ripen quite a bit, it will reach the desired degree of maturity in the refrigerator. If the berry is completely green, it will not turn yellow.
The juice of green papaya (immature) contains latex, which is unsuitable for consumption. Eating the fruit will be possible only after the juice has drained.
Usage Features
It is recommended to eat ripe, but not overripe papaya as food. Green fruits are eaten with caution, often after heat treatment. Milk contained in unripe papaya is removed before cooking. Ripe papaya is safe, but it can also cause indigestion and allergies, which are associated with individual intolerance to the product.
There are several possible ways to eat papaya.
- The most delicious and healthy papaya will be fresh and chilled. The fruit is cut in half, scoop the seeds with a spoon. Then the pulp is eaten with a spoon or cut into slices, like a melon, and eaten just like it. From the halves of papaya can be cut off the peel, the pulp cut into cubes. They are eaten with a fork or used to prepare other dishes.
- When using fresh papaya, it is recommended to water it with citrus fruit juice. They help to reveal its taste and at the same time make its aroma more pleasant and harmonious.
- Some hostesses, whipping papaya pulp in a blender, combining it with water and lemon juice, make ice-cream out of it.
- Often papaya is used to make dessert and snack salads, slicing its flesh into cubes or thin slices. In fruit snacks, papaya is most often combined with other tropical fruits. It is especially well combined with tangerines, oranges, grapefruit, pineapples, mango, kiwi, lime.
- When cooking meat with vegetables, you can add papaya instead of pumpkin or zucchini.
- You can make jam from the pulp of papaya, jam.
- Papaya pulp is added to the dough when baking cakes and muffins.
- Papaya sauce is used as a liquid seasoning, it goes well with meat dishes.
- There are recipes for baked papaya dishes.
- Juice can be squeezed from crushed papaya pulp. It is also used to make smoothies and milkshakes.
The calorie content of papaya depends on the variety, but is generally small: it ranges between 30 and 70 kcal. This makes it possible to include in the diet of people on a diet.
Thai Som Tam salad made from green papaya
Composition:
- green papaya - 0, 2 kg;
- carrots - 70 g;
- green beans - 50 g;
- tomato - 70 g;
- dried shrimp (can be replaced with small boiled, increasing their number) - 20-30 g;
- garlic - 1 clove;
- chili pepper - 1 pod;
- peanuts - 20-30 g;
- sugar (better than palm) - 40 g;
- soy sauce - 40 ml;
- lime or lemon juice - 40 ml.
Method of preparation:
- Cut the papaya. Spoon scrape the seeds. Drain the milky-colored juice that you find inside the fruit.
- Cut off the peel from the pulp. Cut the flesh into thin strips or chop them in a grater designed for cooking Korean salads.
- Peel the carrots. Crush it in the same way as papaya.
- Cut tomatoes into thin slices.
- Put finely chopped garlic and pepper in a mortar, add sugar to them, cover, mix with lime juice and soy sauce.
- Cut the beans into slices about 2 cm long. Also, ceiling them in a mortar.
- Combine papaya, carrot, beans and tomatoes, season them with spicy sauce.
- Mix the salad with the dried shrimp.
- Sprinkle the salad with crushed peanuts and serve.
This salad makes a pleasant impression on most tourists visiting Thailand, and they are not averse to including it in the menu after returning home.
Baked papaya
Composition:
- papaya - 0.5 kg;
- onions - 75 g;
- tomatoes - 100 g;
- garlic - 2 cloves;
- salt, pepper - to taste;
- butter - 10 g;
- hard cheese - 50 g;
- nutmeg is a big pinch;
- olive oil - 40 ml;
- breadcrumbs - 20 g.
Method of preparation:
- Papaya cut in half, remove the seeds.
- Remove the flesh with a spoon, leaving the walls of the fruit halves about 1 cm thick.
- Cut the flesh into small cubes.
- Give the tomatoes with boiling water, peel off the skin, also cut into cubes.
- Onion, freeing from the husk, cut into small pieces.
- Chop the garlic finely.
- Heat olive oil in a pan, put onion and garlic in it, lightly brown, add tomatoes and papaya pulp, stew them for 5-10 minutes.
- Fill the papaya halves with the resulting mass, spread thin slices of oil on top.
- Sprinkle with bread crumbs and grated cheese.
- Heat oven to 180 degrees.
- Place the papaya halves on a baking sheet and send to the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes.
The taste of the resulting dish is not easy to convey in words, but it can be said that it is pleasant, harmonious, and sweet and sour. This dish can appeal to many.
Fruit salad from papaya, pineapple and mango
Composition:
- papaya - 150 g;
- pineapple - 150 g;
- mango - 150 g;
- banana - 100 g;
- grapefruit - 150 g;
- lime - 1 pc. (or 0, 5 pieces of lemon);
- Mint - to serve.
Method of preparation:
- Squeeze juice out of lime or lemon.
- Peel the grapefruit, divide into slices. Clean them of films and stones. Break each lobule into 2-3 pieces.
- Peel the remaining fruits. Remove bone from mango, seeds from papaya.
- Cut the flesh of the fruit into approximately the same size of just over 1 cm.
- Combine all fruits, pour with lime or lemon juice, mix.
Spread the salad on ice-cream bowls, garnish with mint leaves. Serve salad preferably chilled. It can be supplemented with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.
Papaya is a tasty and healthy fruit with a relatively small calorie content. It can be eaten raw and baked, used to make desserts, hot and cold appetizers. Tasty papaya drinks are also produced.
