Pomelo is very large citrus fruit of botanical name Citrus maxima. It is very sweet taste after ripening . Have you ever tried a honey pomelo ? This large citrus fruit can be found in the produce section from late fall to early spring. Here's more about this tasty unique citrus fruit.The fruit is used in many festive celebrations throughout Southeast Asia. After a Captain Shaddock of an East India Company ship introduced it to Barbados, the fruit was called "shaddock" in English. The fruit is also known as jabong in Hawaii and jambola in varieties of English spoken in South Asia. The etymology of the word "pomelo" is uncertain. It may be an alteration of "pompelmoes", in Tamil pomelo are called pampa limasu, which means "big citrus". The name was adopted by the Portuguese as pomposos limoes and then by the Dutch as pompelmoes. Typically, the fruit is pale green to yellow when ripe, with sweet white ( or, more rarely , pink or red) fle...
Pomelo is very large citrus fruit of botanical name Citrus maxima. It is very sweet taste after ripening . Have you ever tried a honey pomelo ? This large citrus fruit can be found in the produce section from late fall to early spring. Here's more about this tasty unique citrus fruit.The fruit is used in many festive celebrations throughout Southeast Asia. After a Captain Shaddock of an East India Company ship introduced it to Barbados, the fruit was called "shaddock" in English. The fruit is also known as jabong in Hawaii and jambola in varieties of English spoken in South Asia. The etymology of the word "pomelo" is uncertain. It may be an alteration of "pompelmoes", in Tamil pomelo are called pampa limasu, which means "big citrus". The name was adopted by the Portuguese as pomposos limoes and then by the Dutch as pompelmoes.
Typically, the fruit is pale green to yellow when ripe, with sweet white ( or, more rarely , pink or red) flesh, and a very thick albedo. It is a large citrus fruit, 15-25 centimetres in diameter, usually weighing 1-2 killograms . Leaf petioles are distinctly winged. Pomelo is much larger than the grapefruit and has a much thicker rind. It tastes like a sweet, mild grapefruit. The flesh has none, or very little, of the common grapefruit's bitterness. The enveloping membranous material around the segments is bitter, considered inedible, and usually discarded.
Sometimes, the peel is used to make marmalade. It may be candied or dipped in chocolate. In Brazil the thick skin is often used for making a sweet conserve, while the spongy pith of the rind is discarded. In Sri Lanka it is often eaten as a dessert, either raw or sprinkled with sugar. Some fatty Asian dishes use sliced pre-soaked pith to absorb the sauce and fat for eating.
Citrus maxima is usually grafted onto other citrus rootstocks but may be grown from seed. The fruit is said to have been introduced to Japan by a Cantonese captain in the An'ei era (1772-1781). There are two varieties; a sweet kind with white flesh, and sour kind with pinkish flesh, the latter more likely to be used as an altar decoration than eaten. Pomelos often are eaten in Asia during the mid-autum festive or mooncake festival.
It is one of the ingredients of Forbidden Fruit, a liqueur dating back to the early twentieth century that also contains honey and brandy. This liqueur is most famously used in the Dorchester cocktail.
Pomelo leaves are used for aromatic baths. The essential oil can be extracted from the leaves, peel or seeds of some pomelo species. Oil from the seeds of an inferior pomelo species was used to light opium pipes in Indochina. Perfumes are extracted from the flowers using enfleurage. The moderately heavy and hard timber from pomelo trees can be used to make , among other things, tool handles.
The pomelo is one of the original citrus species from which the rest of cultivated citrus have been hybridized, being citron, mandarin, and to a lesser extent, papedas and kumquat). In particular, the common orange and the grapefruit are presumed to be naturally occuring hybrids between the pomelo and the mandarin, with the pomelo providing the larger size and greater firmness.
Hybrid and Types:
1) The common sweet orange is a pomelo * mandarin hybrid
2) The bitter orange is another pomelo*mandarin hybrid
3) The tangelo is any hybrid between Citrus maxima and a tangerine, it generally has a thicker skin than a tangerine and is less sweet. For example: K-Early ('Sunrise Tangelo').
4)Grapefruit is a pomelo backcross: pomelo * sweet orange and the grapefruit is a parent to many hybrids;
- 'Minneola': Bowen grapefruit* Dancy tangerine
- 'Orlando': Brown grapefruit* Dancy tangerine (Pollen parent)
- Nova: Clementine * Orlando tanglo cross
- Seminole: Bowen grapefruit * Dancy tangerine.
- Thornton : tangerine * grapefruit, unspecified.
- Ugli: mandarine * grapefruit , probable (wild seedling)
5)The Oroblanco and Melogold grapefruits are hybrids between Citrus maxima and the grapefruit.
6)Mandelos: pomelo * mandarine (Citrus maxima)
7)Hyuganatsu is a pomelo hybrid.
WHAT DOES IT TASTE ?
The flavor is milder than a grapefruit not as bitter, not as sour but there is definitely a resemblance. I also found them to be much more firm and less juicy than a grapefruit. Everyone in our house, young and old , enjoyed the flavor and texture. Here's comparison of a pomelo segment and a grapefruit segment. Unfortunately, sometimes you get an old or dried out pomelo where the flesh is very , very dry. It's hard to avoid sometimes, but always select the heaviest blemish free pomelo you can find. That's an unfortunate drawback of getting fruit from far away.
Comments
Post a Comment