Description of a little-studied plant. Useful properties and contraindications to the use of purple mombin. Mexican plum food and drink recipes. Interesting facts and methods of growing a fruit crop. Not only the fruits of mombin purple are eaten, but also young fresh leaves. They taste sour. Soups are made from them, as in Russia from nettle, and added to salads.
The seeds of the plant are also valuable for culinary specialists. The shells are ground into powder and used as a seasoning for the popular Mexican dish "chili".
Jokot recipes
Culinary experts combine the taste of jokot with other tropical fruits and vegetables, as well as with ingredients familiar to Europeans.
Recipes with mombin purple:
- Salvadoran dessert … Molasses is cooked from corn. To do this, ripe corn cobs are cut into circles, 1, 5-2 cm thick, poured with water, slightly salted and boiled until softened, 1, 5 hours, no less. When half of the liquid has boiled away, it is filtered off, lemon juice, vanillin and sugar are added, put on the fire again and boiled until the liquid darkens and acquires the consistency of liquid honey. Ingredient proportions: 4 cobs of corn, 1 kg of sugar, 3-4 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice, a packet of vanillin. Mashed potatoes made from a mixture of mombin pulp and avocado are laid out in a mold, poured with molasses and put into the refrigerator. Wait until the mass becomes viscous. At this time, corn tortillas are baked. Knead the dough from corn flour in water, add a little salt, if you want, add the yolk. The dough should be elastic. The tortillas are rolled out thinly and baked in a pan on both sides, like pancakes. While the cake is hot and elastic, the frozen sweet mass is wrapped in it.
- Mexican stew with purple mombin leaves … Can be served with boiled chicken or any other meat. Beans are poured with water overnight, and in the morning they are boiled, slightly salted. Turn off when the inside of the beans is soft, but not out of shape. The onion is cut into thin half rings, the carrots are cut into cubes, the Bulgarian pepper of two varieties is cut into strips. One pepper is red or yellow, sweet, and the second green, spicy. Put all the vegetables in a hot skillet and fry in corn oil. Add tomatoes in half rings, boiled beans, a tablespoon of spicy tomato paste, paprika, cinnamon and add salt. 3 minutes before turning off, put crushed garlic, a few pieces of chili pepper, chopped leaves of purple mombin, scalded with boiling water, into the pan. Chicken can be stewed separately, generously seasoned with salt and pepper, or put in a skillet with vegetables.
- Purple mombin jam … Jokota is poured with water so that the berries are covered on top, and boiled until softened. When the broth has completely cooled down, the water is drained, and the fruits are rubbed through a sieve, at the same time getting rid of the seeds. The puree is again poured with broth, covered with sugar - at the rate of 1: 1. Cook the jam, stirring constantly so that it does not burn. When the spoon is difficult to move, add a little citric acid or zest. The finished jam is laid out in sterilized jars.
- Purple mombin paste … The jokotas are pitted and boiled with sugar to obtain a mixture of uniform consistency. The amount of sugar is calculated by themselves. For 1 kg of pulp, you need at least 200 g of sugar. If the fruit is too sour, the amount is increased. The resulting jam is spread in an even layer on silicone molds and put to dry in the oven. It should be warmed up to + 70 ° С and the door should be left ajar. The pastila will be ready in 5-7 hours. You can add chopped almonds, shredded chocolate, lemon zest, or poppy seeds to the jam to improve the taste before drying the pastilles.
- Purple mombin ice cream … The fruits are washed, pitted, placed in a blender and mashed. Soak 1 bag of gelatin, heat to dissolve the thickener completely, and pour the gelatin into the mombin puree. Add some sugar, a glass of heavy cream to the blender bowl, mix everything and put it in the freezer. If there is an ice cream machine, it is better to use it. The future ice cream is laid out in molds and put into the freezer until it thickens.
- Fruit ice … Mombin purple can be used to make popsicles. Dissolve gelatin in water. Take 2 times more berry puree than water with gelatin, combine all the ingredients, heat everything over low heat, but do not bring it to a boil. Cooled, placed in an ice cream maker and turned on at maximum power. The finished ice cream is frozen in the freezer.
You can also grind the jokot with sugar and use it as a filling for sweet pies. These pies are very convenient to bake. Due to the starchiness of the fruit, the filling does not leak.
Mombin purple drinks
Mombin purple is added to drinks, cocktails are made from it and compotes are brewed.
Jokota drinks recipes:
- Cocktail … A little less than a glass of peeled berries is ground through a sieve or whipped in a blender along with a banana. Beat until high speed with 200 g of ice cream and a glass of milk. If the drink turns out to be too sweet, add cinnamon, sour - honey.
- Refreshing drink … Jokota puree, about a glass, mixed with sugar, poured into a blender bowl, add a glass of unsweetened yogurt and a glass of pomegranate juice. Interrupt until a homogeneous structure, put to cool in the refrigerator. Before serving, pour into a shaker, add everything that is needed until the perfect taste: mint, a little sugar or cinnamon, and then poured into tall glasses. Gourmets add a little red pepper as an additional component.
The easiest way to make a purple mombin drink is to boil a compote. The berries are dipped in boiling water and sugar is added. It takes 3-5 minutes to prepare a drink.
Interesting facts about mombin purple
The fruiting of a plant is not tied to a specific time of the year. Some trees are still in bloom, while others have already set fruit.
Plantations are planted in areas where during the year the temperature ranges from +13 to + 35 ° C. Purple mombin takes root by cuttings, begins to bear fruit at 4-5 years. Every plant needs at least a short rest. Wild trees rest in the dry season; rest of cultivated seedlings is artificially regulated.
Jokot thickets are often planted as hedges. In this case, the yield is much lower due to insufficient lighting.
Mombin purple is successfully grown in winter gardens, but it is impossible to get a harvest under these conditions. Pollination is necessary for the ovary to form. Jokotu is pollinated by bats that live only in subtropical climates.
Jokota is grown not only for food purposes. Its light and fragile wood is used to make quality paper, and its ash and fruit extract are used in the cosmetics industry.
Watch the video about mombin purple:
For residents of Europe, who have never traveled outside their climatic zone, the only opportunity to get acquainted with a subtropical plant is to purchase a gentle cosmetic soap, the packaging of which says “Jokota extract”. However, after such "acquaintance" it is impossible to get an idea of the taste of the Mexican plum.
