Alien Ingredient #35: Wax Apple

So here's an interesting tropical fruit that I stumbled on yesterday. It's called the wax apple in the store where I bought it. Officially known as Syzygium samarangense, it hails from Thailand to India and Malaysia to the Philippines.

It's a small fruit (refer to the cherry tomato in the photo) that is firm and has a smooth skin like a pear but with a waxier texture and a dimpled end just like a chayote. Biting into the fruit, the first thing that comes to mind is a pear or a watermelon because the fruit is dripping with juice.

I found the fruit to have a sweet flavor at first, dissipating in the middle, and then finishing with a slight piny afternote that I think comes from the skin. The flesh is fairly pithy and nearly flavorless. I wound up sucking all the juice out of the fruit and spitting out what little flesh there was.

Vote: they're a fun fruit in the summer, but their uses are pretty limited.