Slaying a DRAGON fruit

Dear Amelia and Julia

So perhaps the title of this post is a little bit dramatic, however the name of the fruit is rather dramatic don't you think and it looks dramatic, so doesn't this lovely fascinating fruit deserve a little drama, a little adventure, a little pzazz?

Here in South Africa we have really managed to grow in the culinary world, and I suppose that is why suddenly we are importing some lovely global morsels into not just specialty stores but into some of our local super markets as well.

In today's South Africa, you can find funky enoki and oyster mushrooms, bok choi, endives, truffle, and even  okra. Previously if recipes called for the fore mentioned, you had to substitute them with button mushrooms and lettuce, and pray the recipe worked without the truffle and even more, you sat there going "what on earth is okra?".

For me it has been wonderful, because it sometimes feels that as my foodie-ness grew, so has the food market, making it easier for me to experiment and try out some of the lovely things I have seen on the cooking channel.

With the above in mind, you can therefore image my excitement when I was just walking around our local grocery store with my Mother one day with just the intention to keep her company and hang out, when I noticed this neon coloured thing in the fruit section!

I have seen the dragon fruit before on travel shows and shows like Master chef Australia and always wondered what it must taste like. I immediately turned to my Mother and pleaded with her, "pleeeeeeeeaaaaaase can we buy it! Look at it! It's amazing!"

Doesn't it look like a dragons egg?

Luckily for me, my Mother is wonderful! So she said we could buy it, and I proceeded to search for the brightest coloured one to get the most "Ooooh's" and "Aaaaaah's" when I would take it back with me to my Fiancee's house.

The brightest fruit I could find for the "ooh's" and "aah's"

At my Fiancee's house, the "slaying" began. The dragon fruit has a thick leathery skin, but it peels quite easily. I was really most surprised to see how white the actual fruit inside was compared to it's bright exterior, but I was also rewarded while peeling it to see how the inside of the skin had an even more beautiful fuschia colour to it, which I loved!

It felt like I was in a fantasy land looking at this remarkable fruit.

Look! It's white inside!

And the skin is even brighter inside! Fuschia beautifulness!

Once peeled I cut the white fruit into slices for us all to try. To me I would explain the taste and texture to be a bit of a mix between a prickly pear and a kiwi fruit.

The taste was closer to the prickly pear, very watery, with a bit of sweetness, but also a hint of sour and salt, so a bit like a watered down prickly pear. However the texture was soft and had crunchy tiny black seeds like a kiwi.

If I had to be completely honest with you, after the excitement of the look of they fruit, the taste was a little anticlimactic. A bit of a boring taste on it's own. However I could see it being a lovely addition to a fruit salad.

Perhaps one day I shall try it again in that fruit salad and let you know how that went.

Sincerely

May Marjoram