Tough On The Outside, Sweet On The Inside

I once thought that if dragons existed, what consisted of their diet? The existence of dragon fruit could evident enough to conclude that dragons do exist! Dragons don’t exist; they are only tales (except for maybe this one) yet this fruit has no tale of its own.

The dragon fruit striked an appearance of a pineapple as it contained scales that shaped the outside yet felt like leather when touched. Supposedly, the yellow dragon fruit had thorns on them since they were grown from a cactus but were picked off before placed in grocery stores. There were several cacti from South America which different dragon fruits had grown on. Embarrassed to admit, it took me several hours before I had an epiphany that the fruit’s “dragon” name was likely coined since its fruit’s skin resembled the skin of a dragon. In South America, it was originally called pitaya which translated to dragon fruit. I then decided on the dragon fruit once my girlfriend told me that fruits from cactus tend to be the sweetest. I also picked the yellow color since the red was more expensive and had not looked as appealing on the outside. For a whopping three dollars, I picked out two yellow dragon fruits to try. I thought it would be joyful to use the fruit as a recipe with the help of my girlfriend.

We decided to prepare a salsa with the dragon fruit as the main part that is seasoned with salsa ingredients. My girlfriend, who studied culinary, would prep one fruit as I followed her with the other. Before I vertically sliced mine in half, I had taken a whiff of the fruit’s skin. Oddly, any fruit odor cannot be smelled or it lacked one. However once sliced, I noted that the inside’s transparent appearance shared similarities of the green inside of a kiwi but white. Small black seeds could be seen on the most superficial and deep into the fruit due to being able to see through it. It looked soft as the inside of a kiwi which could explain the absence of difficulty when being sliced. When felt, the fruit felt slimy and slippery just like kiwi, internally. 

I also noticed how much the juice gushed once I sliced it. The inside was unexpected, yet it still lacked a smell; inside and out. The fruit was cubed while the other ingredients were prepped as for any other salsa. Once finished, we just basically placed all ingredients into a bowl and simply mixed. I also put some cubed pieces back into its now bowl-shaped skin just for a photo.

As expected, the slippery pieces were as soft as kiwi and the black seeds gushed plenty which quenched my thirst. Out of what I predicted, the pieces were very sweet with the complimented tingly effect and taste of red bell paper. I enjoyed the salsa alone and later tried it with Tostitos as with any salsa. I was satisfied with the recipe and found that the fruit wasn’t overshadowed by the other ingredients. Although sweet, it did not have a unique taste which other fruits bare. However, it tasted similar to table sugar. If I were to otherwise taste different types of fruits while blindfolded, I doubt that I could identify a dragon fruit. One could recognize a singer on a song they never heard because of his or hers unique voice alone. The sugary-like flavor of the fruit could make as an alternative to the poorly nutritious table sugar. It could even blend perfectly with smoothies, without it taking away another fruit’s flavor I intended for.

I would’ve recognized if banana in yogurt was present when tasted, but it may be hard for dragon fruit as it seemed to be more like a sweetener than anything; my girlfriend also said it be “sweet and savory”. We thought it was worth a try and planned to use it as a “natural” sweetener for protein shakes or in yogurt parfaits. I was also curious to try the red and pink variants of the dragon fruit since different colors meant different tastes as like in apples.