Charlie the Chayote
As I stated, one of my goals is to cook with new ingredients this year. More specifically, I am attempting to cook with one new ingredient every month.
Allow me to introduce you to Charlie the Chayote:
Charlie is a native of Costa Rica. However, he has many relatives from other tropical areas, such as southeast Asia. My wife brought Charlie home last week, and it was now his turn to grace our table.
As you can see, from the inside Charlie looks to be something of a pear. However, Charlie is considered a summer squash, and is often used in soups. My goal was to use his chayote nature in a more bold manner.
After olive oil, salt, sugar, crushed red pepper, red wine vinegar and about 10 minutes of medium heat, we were left with the following side dish:
Charlie’s distinguishing feature is his texture. Cross a pear and a cucumber and you have something of the texture. Charlie does not have much flavor, however. This necessitated the rather bold combination of flavors I used to make this side.
