There are different varieties of gooseberry, but our focus here is the cape gooseberry (Physalis peruviana), also called the Peruvian groundcherry and the goldenberry, the uchuva (in Columbia) and fruta del amor (love fruit—in Peru).

It’s a close relative of the tamarillo and the tomatillo, as well as the tomato—all members of Solanacaea, the Nightshade* family. The genus originated in the Andes Mountains, in the area that is now Ecuador, Colombia, and Peru.

The “cape” is a paper-thin green covering that dries to a tan or greenish ecru papery husk. The husk is left on for attractive garnishing and removed for cooking.

There are also capeless varieties, which are similar in taste but lack the delicate beauty of the cape.

Because of the scarcity and the cost, cape gooseberries are used sparingly, often as colorful garnishes on plates or cocktail glasses.
 
But these flavorful little fruits, looking like miniature cherry tomatoes, are eaten as berries or cooked into chutneys, compotes, desserts, jams and jellies, meat glazes, pies, purées, sauces, or garnishes for plates and beverages.

For a fancy dessert garnish, dip them in chocolate.

The berries need to be eaten when they are very ripe; otherwise, they can be tart.

But as part of your adventures in food, experiment. If they aren’t sweet enough, you can bathe them in sugar water, sprinkle them with sugar or cook them with added sugar.

> Take a look at the two recipes below: Poached Gooseberries and a versatile Gooseberry Butter Sauce.
 
 
HISTORY OF THE CAPE GOOSEBERRY

Thousands of years ago, Inca farmers high in the Andes cultivated the wild bounty that grew on their lands: sixty varieties of beans, cape gooseberries, cherimoya, dragon fruit, peanuts, potatoes, prickly pear, squash, tamarillo, tomatoes, and quinoa, among other crops.

The bright orange berry, also called the Aztec berry, golden berry, ground cherry, husk tomato, Inca berry, Peruvian cherry, and poha, grows at 7,500 to 10,000 feet. Traders brought them to Florida and Louisiana in the 1700s. Cajuns brought them to Quebec, where they are still cultivated.

They grow wild throughout a great part of the country They are cultivated in the U.S. and also grow wild here, having escaped their cultivated fields centuries ago. They are grown in Europe and as far away as Australia, which cans them for distribution to the rest of the world.
 
 
RECIPE #1: POACHED GOOSEBERRIES

Thanks to Andrew Faulkner of Melissas.com for this recipe.

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. COMBINE the sugar and water, bring to a boil and boil for 8 to 10 minutes.

2. ADD the lemon and gooseberries and cook for 5 minutes, until the fruit is just cooked through (about 12 minutes in all).

3. COOL in the syrup. Serve as a topping for ice cream, or serve warm over sponge cake or angel cake with whipped cream.
 
 
RECIPE #2: GOOSEBERRY BUTTER SAUCE

This sauce, by Tom Fraker for Melissa’s Produce, can be served over squash, a white fish fillet, or as a dessert sauce.

Ingredients

[1] Cape gooseberries (photo © Rose Jones | Flickr).

[2] You can see why cape gooseberries in their husks make a lovely garnish (photo © Lucas George Wendt | Unsplash).

[3] Panna cotta with poached gooseberries. Here’s the recipe (photo © Cannelle Vanille).

[4] Antidote chocolate is made in Ecuador, home of gooseberries, which they add to chocolate (photo © Antidote Chocolate).

*Nightshades are members of the Solanaceae family of flowering plants, many of which are edible, while others are poisonous (some have both edible and toxic parts). The name of the family comes from the Latin solanum, “the nightshade plant.” Other edible members include capsicum (the chiles), Chinese lanterns, eggplants, garden huckleberry, ground cherry, naranjilla, pepinos, peppers, potatoes, and the tree tomato.

One thing that sets these nightshades apart is their alkaloid content. Alkaloids are harmful nitrogen compounds that, in high quantities, are toxic, causing nausea, diarrhea with vomiting, and headaches. In extreme cases, they lead to unconsciousness and convulsions to the point of respiratory paralysis. That’s why the tomato was considered poisonous by Europeans and not eaten for 200 years following its discovery. Alkaloids exist in tiny, non-harmful quantities in the nightshade foods we eat. Tobacco and the petunia are also members of the family, as well as the Datura or Jimson weed, the mandrake, and the deadly nightshade or belladonna.
 
 

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If you’re a fan of seared foie gras: Why pay a restaurant a $20 supplement for one little piece when you can buy an entire pound for $30.99 and sear it at home in a minute?

Our Top Pick Of The Week is bargain foie gras: $30.99 a pound for the trimmings of the lobe, called foie gras cubes. The whole lobe, or for pre-sliced scallops, is almost double that.

The cubes are available from foie gras specialist D’artagnan.

While foie gras may seem exotic, cooking it couldn’t be easier. Just season with salt and pepper and place in a hot pan for a minute. The biggest task is deciding how to serve it.

In general, sweet or sweet-and-sour items pair best with the richness of seared foie gras:

We love the way it looks: It’s fun food. It belongs on a list of grilled cheese sandwich ideas.

But this sandwich is not so much fun, after all.

It was a dubious winner of a 2011 Xtreme Eating Award, bestowed by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) to highlight “American chain restaurants’ culinary extremism.”

Denny’s Fried Cheese Melt is described as “Grilled cheese with a twist. Four fried mozzarella sticks and melted American cheese grilled between two slices of sourdough bread. Served with wavy-cut French fries and a side of marinara sauce.”

The “twist” serves itself up at 1,260 calories, 21 grams of saturated fat and 3,010 mg of sodium—the equivalent of downing two Pizza Hut Personal Pan Pepperoni Pizzas.

While the idea of cheese-within-cheese is fun, the results aren’t. So here’s THE NIBBLE’s own Eat This, Not That suggestion:

 
Here are the 2013 Xtreme Eating Awards winners.

They’re not traditional peanut butter cups, in that there’s no chocolate enrobing the PB. What they are is peanut butter chips shaped like miniature peanut butter cups. They’re a visual delight, a fun change of pace from chips.

As with peanut butter chips, the cups soften but hold their shape in baked goods.

Cookies & Bars: Mix into chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal cookies or peanut butter cookies. Plan to add 1-1/2 cups to the cookie recipe. For bar cookies, think chocolate brownies, blondies and oatmeal bars.

It’s hard not to snack on them, but these little peanut butter cups were meant for baking and garnishing. Photo courtesy King Arthur Flour.

Cake & Pie Garnish: Top iced cakes, cupcakes, cheesecakes and cream pies—chocolate, banana, peanut butter, vanilla.

Ice Cream: Add to chocolate, peanut butter or vanilla ice cream at the end of the churn cycle; mix into softened store-bought ice cream; or use as a parfait or sundae garnish.

If you can’t resist snacking on them, 14 pieces = one Weight Watchers point.

A 12-ounce bag of Mini Peanut Butter Cups is $7.95 at KingArthurFlour.com.

RECIPE: CHOCOLATE PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES

With pockets of peanut butter in a rich chocolate base, these cookies get raves from everyone who bakes them.

Prep time is 10 to 14 minutes, bake time 7 to 9 minutes, total time 27 to 37 minutes, yield approximately 3 dozen cookies.

Ingredients

Preparation

1. PREHEAT oven to 375°F. Lightly grease (or line with parchment) two baking sheets.

2. WHISK together flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt in a medium-sized bowl. In a separate bowl…

3. BEAT together the sugars, butter and peanut butter until light and fluffy.

4. BEAT in the vanilla, egg, and water; then stir in the dry ingredients, blending well.

5. STIR in the mini peanut butter cups.

6. SCOOP rounded tablespoonfuls of dough onto the prepared baking sheets; a tablespoon cookie scoop works well here. Flatten each cookie to about 1/2″ thick.

7. BAKE for 7 to 9 minutes, or until they’re set and you can smell chocolate. Remove cookies from the oven and cool on a rack.

Here’s another recipe, for Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Pie.
 
Find more of our favorite cookie recipes.

Amaranth is planted worldwide, harvested for cereal and leaf vegetables, and used as ornamental plants. It has been cultivated for 8,000 years.

There are some 60 species, tall plants with foliage ranging from purple and red to green or gold. Like buckwheat and quinoa, amaranth is not a grain but a pseudograin. The difference: True cereals are grasses, pseudocereals are broadleaf plants. Their overall nutrient profile is similar to that of cereals, and they are similarly utilized in cooking.

The seeds of pseudograins (analogous to the grains of cereals) can be cooked whole or ground into flour, which in turn becomes cereal, goes into tortillas and other baked goods, and becomes snack food: made into candy and chips, popped and made into a bar mixed with honey, sunflower and pumpkin seeds.

Pseudocereals can be even more nutritious than grains: both amaranth and quinoa are whole proteins and gluten free.

A whole protein contains all of the essential amino acids—like meat or milk, but actually a higher quality protein. Amaranth also contains significantly more calcium, iron, fiber, magnesium and protein than cereals like oats, rice, rye, sorghum and wheat.

In fact, amaranth packs more protein than any other plant on earth; NASA selected it as part of its astronauts’ diets. The leaves Amaranth pack more calcium, iron and vitamin C and than spinach. It also can withstand the triple digit temperatures of climate change, which corn cannot.

> The history of amaranth follows.

> The year’s 35+ grain holidays.

 
 
THE HISTORY OF AMARANTH: 8,000 YEARS OF AMARANTH

[1] Tiny beads of amaranth, the seeds of the plant (photo © Bob’s Red Mill).

[2] Amaranth plant (photo © Yuko’s Seeds).

It did, however, spread around the world: Both leaves and seeds became important food sources in areas of Africa, India and Nepal. In recent decades, amaranth it has spread to China, Nigeria, Russia and Thailand, and other parts of South America.

And, it’s now grown in the U.S., in Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, New York (Long Island) and North Dakota.

The plant, called “the crop of the future” by Science magazine in 1977, is finally making a comeback in Mexico thanks to two American philanthropists who are encouraging farmers to grow it. Mexico has the highest rate of adult obesity in the world, yet each year some 10,000 children die from malnutrition.*
 

[3] Amaranth energy bars (photo © Kuali Real Foods).

[4] Maple amaranth porridge. Here’s the recipe (photo © Whole Grains Council).

The flavor of amaranth flavor runs from light and nutty to lively and peppery. It’s a natural ingredient for breads, cookies, crackers, muffins, pancakes and porridge. The cooked grains can be spread sprinkled on salads and soups.

Cooking amaranth is very easy. As with cereal grains, simply boil with water and salt (6 cups of water per cup of amaranth) for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally; then drain, rinse and eat. The cooking liquid becomes thick and viscous from the starch released as the amaranth cooks.

Cooked amaranth never loses its crunch completely. Chewing a spoonful of cooked amaranth grains has been compared to eating a spoonful of caviar: a slight pop on the surface and a soft inside.
 
Try these recipes:

 
_______________

*Ironically, these issues are linked: Childhood malnutrition makes children seven to eight times more likely to be overweight or obese as an adult.

Sources:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/devinthorpe/2013/06/26/amaranth-how-will-it-change-the-world/
http://www.pri.org/stories/science/environment/mexicans-pushing-for-return-of-ancient-grain-amaranth-to-agriculture-14176.html
yle=”font-size:10px”>http://wholegrainscouncil.org/whole-grains-101/amaranth-may-grain-of-the-month-0

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