PICKLE TREE - Starfruit's Sour Little Cousin (Bilimbi)

[@WeirdExplorer]

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[@Studio-7V]

I love that you're making more episodes where you cook these fruits and try them in recipes, it goes a long way to normalize their usage and make culinary culture a little more diverse 😃

[@rtvitko]

Thank you for another great video. On Guam and across Micronesia, bilimbi is referred to as "sour pickle," eaten out of hand with chili, salt, pepper and soy sauce, and used as a souring agent in soups and with fish/fish dishes. The specific one you ate was younger and smaller than some would normally eat them. They grow significantly larger and heavier. Bilimbi grow yellower and mellower with age. The comparison with lemon in this case for a "sourness" reference is difficult. Bilimbi are source because of oxalic acid and not citric acid. They are definitely sour and possess a different quality of sourness from citrus. Your description of the crispness was totally on point. Once they take on a yellow hue, they rapidly soften and lose that crispy quality that makes them so desirable as a snack out of hand Young starfruit are also eaten green, and made into pickles as well. Much like the Indonesians, in the Western Pacific, they are clearly recognized as related items and valued for the reasons you described, and more as other commenters have noted. You have previously posted on something i think you called "Indian gooseberry" from episodes out of Assam and Vietnam. That fruit, "iba" we treat and pickle similarly to the bilimbi and star fruit we call bilimbines on Guam. Like bilimbi, cacao and jabutucaba, it is cauliflorous with fruit growing straight from the trunk versus on the ends of branches like starfruit/bilimbines. Greatly appreciate this post. It made me homesick for familiar flavors.

[@lynemac2539]

You have made me hungry!

[@ackdabay4034]

here in the Philippines we call the Star Fruit "Balimbing" and the Balimbi we call it "Camias" or Kalamias in Tagalog and "Piyas" in Ilocano. we utilize this fruits in cooking like sinigang and pangat, we also make jam out of it (sweetened camias). we also use the bilimbi in laundry as stain removal

[@amaladiguna8873]

My oldest brother used to feed me this as a child when we had a Belimbing tree growing in our yard. Also it grows everywhere, even in the city. It sometimes goes into fish stew, vegetable curry and sambal.

[@iankubangsari1209]

Kalau di indonesia nama nya belimbing wuluh yang kecil rasa nya sangat asam. Bisa di gunakan untuk memasak sayuran. Kalau belimbing yang seperti bintang rasa nya sangat manis. Apalagi jenis varian belimbing madu. Saya juga tanam pohon belimbing jenis ini di kebun belakang rumah. Terima kasih telah ber bagi video yang sangat bagus 🙏👍

[@WeirdExplorer]

Thank you!

[@aravind4946]

Try fruits from sandalwood tree, they are edible and it’s nuts can also be roasted and eaten.

[@WeirdExplorer]

I actually like the flavor of sandalwood. this sounds right up my alley 😅

[@ferretyluv]

Sandalwood smells like soap to me. Does it taste like soap?

[@reubenschneider3921]

I've had the sandalwood nuts once, I remember that chewing them for a while left a little glutinous ball in my mouth, kind of like when I've chewed on a handful of wheat. Would be cool to experiment with making a bread with sandalwood flour!

[@aravind4946]

@@ferretyluv I have never tasted it, so I can’t say for sure. I live in south India but sandalwood is extremely rare and planting one in garden requires special permission from forest department. Even if you have a tree in your garden it requires very specific soil conditions to have sandal content in it. I once visited a soap factory as part of student industrial visit and they had the tree in their premises protected by barb wire.

[@juliemcgugan1244]

@@aravind4946I should imagine so! Not only is it valuable to the company, it's wood is one of the most expensive woods in the world!

[@bisenk]

In Goa, India, it is called bimbli, and you can find them growing in traditional houses. The most common way people have it is the pickle. Not sure if the pickle you found was the Goan kind :)

[@objective_psychology]

I love that these (and star fruit) are in the same family as wood sorrel, which are also tart and edible, and they even have star-shaped seed pods!

[@boogywoooogy]

I love wood sorrel!!!

[@Lalupin464]

This unlocked a core memory because growing up in Hawai’i, my neighbors had a pickle tree and my little brother would just go into their yard to pick these.

[@charlessumnerfacts4883]

Growing up in PH, I ate too many of these as a young child and almost died from a seizure! Stopped eating them after that. But I still remember the crisp texture and great sour taste...

[@JTMusicbox]

Even the name Bilimbi sounds fun!

[@capnstewy55]

As I recently discovered, foods high in oxalic acid can also trigger gout attacks 😅

[@ferretyluv]

Oxalic acid also means kidney stones.

[@Lazylilipad664]

We have that here in the Philippines, it's called Kamias but here in the Panay we call it Iba. We use it as a sour spice for our food.

[@nayna2442]

woah this is my favourite fruit and im so happy to see you cover it! it's called puli where im from - which literally means sour lol (and it can also mean tamarind too!). my grandpapa planted a tree in the back yard before he passed away and i have some every single day with a little salt aha. omg im craving some now

[@paulwright8378]

You looked like you stepped on a lego brick when you ate that Bilimbi 😂

[@kruloon9381]

I just came back from Nakhonpathom today and brought exactly these two fruits home! What a coincidence.

[@msdegrasse]

Oxalates are water soluble so can be removed by soaking or cooking.

[@markiangooley]

Where I now live in Florida I’ve never seen anything but the usual starfruit, but I used to be able to get starfruit wine. The resemblance in flavor to grapes does make the wine pretty good if you’re used to ordinary wine from grapes.

[@rayikaikin]

i got to try bilimbi a while ago and loved its super sour taste! after eating 2 i was worried about the enamel on my teeth! but i loved the taste enough i bought a small tree for my yard. ive started tracking down and trying rare fruits thanks to you and growing the ones i really enjoy thanks for the inspiration to try new things!

[@AksTube]

Really love your deep-research, expertise, experience and knowledge. It is a real treat to watch you work.

[@WeirdExplorer]

So nice of you

[@Lasenggo]

We also make this into candy in the Philippines. You have to use the larger fruits (similar size to the frozen ones in the video), you poke the fruits with a fork then squeeze out the juices (they need to have some juice left). Then you put them in a wok/skillet and add brown sugar or panela (sangkaka or panutsa in Philippines). Just cook them until the sugar seeps into fruit, it's very delicious. We used to cook it when we play house, our parents were cool we were allowed to use fire and actually cook when playing house at our backyard 😂

[@kayagorzan]

I’m Thai and my mother used to tell me her childhood stories of picking and eating from local bilimbi or “ตะลิงปลิง/Talingpling” trees, usually with the “salt & chili” (even though it’s probably 70% sugar lol) dip you’ve tried, and with a “sweet fish sauce” dip very common here in Thailand.

[@hardwareful]

Starfruit is also an issue with Caramboxin, which is nephrotoxic and neurotoxic, so don't throw two or more starfruits in the juicer thinking you're doing something healthy.

[@abyssoftus]

@@kantonlevine8898 you will if you go into kidney failure.

[@hardwareful]

@@kantonlevine8898 I love them, too.. but some people cannot break down caramboxin, so it really messes them up. If you survived one, there's absolutely nothing wrong with them (in moderation)

[@Tinil0]

No individual item is "healthy" or "unhealthy", only diets can be. As long as you don't have fucked up kidneys, starfruit isn't going to do harm in any reasonable quantity.

[@John-qn6ex]

For all of the Anona fruit episodes that I have seen, I have not seen a certain type of custard apple in these videos, so I figured I would mention it to you because I just saw it in somebody else's video on youtube. You probably covered it, but it's the Red Custard Apple, and apparently it tastes like raspberry yogurt.

[@6AxisSage]

Oh yeah, kids in the Philippines used to bring me bilimbis to eat, awesome 😁

[@Odinson42]

I got some in my kitchen right now. Yea, it's sour. I basically cut the sour with spicy chilis and salt. It becomes addictive if you like sour fruit.

[@Dystopix]

deep-fried starfruit with bilimbi ketchup? 🪄

[@earkittycat]

I have a bilimbi tree, in malay it's called "belimbing nipis" which means thin starfruit.

[@kuroyuri04]

Ahahahaha~ Even the ripe one still doesn't have a tinge of sweetness. Wuluh is like the true essence of sourness. 😂😂😂 And what is even more interesting, to the naked eye the Averrhoa bilimbi tree looks similar to the Phyllantus acidus tree. We used to have A. bilimbi and P. acidus trees growing side by side in our grandmother's yard, when they weren't bearing fruit, people often got confused when they recognized these two trees. 😅😅

[@franzb69]

in my part of the world star fruit is called balimbing and bilimbi is called kamias. (philippines)

[@renzigayosa5895]

Here in the Philippines we use that balimbi (we call it here as camias) in cooking fish we call this dish pinais na isda(fish) and it’s good

[@BlitheApathy]

I love star fruit so much!~

[@ferretyluv]

That face you made when you bit into the bilimbi made me lol.

[@meisteremm]

Headed over to Pampanga in a few days, so I will definitely be on the lookout for this. Thanks for the tip.

[@heyy13]

I also love starfruit and would never have considered describing the flavour to be like a white grape. However, now I've heard that, and thinking back, I can see the comparison.

[@heyy13]

Also, as someone who will eat lemons out of hand, I think I would love these.

[@KurtWickham]

You could use it as a partial souring agent with calamansi juice in making kilawin (filipino raw marinated fish)

[@Erewhon2024]

If you have calamansi (calamondin in English), why not just use it by itself?

[@KurtWickham]

@@Erewhon2024 I think before they received citrus fruits in trade and cultivated them, the bilimbing was, perhaps with dayap, one of their only readily available souring agents before even rice vinegar?)

[@sixthousandblankets]

In the Coastal part of Kenya people ferment them with onions and chilli in the sun to make a very delicious sauce that is added to food. Here we call the Mbirimbi.

[@WeirdExplorer]

that sounds great

[@pposavids5119]

Back in Philippines we have a Bilimbi (Pias) tree and i like it specially pickled ..

[@franzb69]

in the philippines we put salt or shrimp paste or even sugar to cancel out the overly sour taste of both fruit and eat it as a snack.

[@zelrex4657]

That's weird. the starfruit in the yard of my old house did grow on the bark. It even grew some on the trunk.

[@heatwave0]

I remember eating bilimbi with combination of soy sauce and sugar (Not reduced)! I also remember that the sourness becomes sweet when I try to soak it in the sweet soy

[@80sforever3]

Sun dried the fruit like tomato then use it to make pasta sauce. Awesome!!!

[@embongmohamad3981]

Bilimbi is called belimbing buloh in Malaysia. Buloh literally means bamboo. I don’t see the relations. However it has limited use in cooking, maybe as garnishing in tuna curry for Nasi Dagang or Sambal Hitam.

[@thakyou5005]

This is definetly a fruit I'd like to have!

[@kaichidraws7787]

I didnot know that starfruit [balimbing] and bilimbi [kamias] are of the same family. anyway i love Kamias in sweet candied fruit form [close to a jam - can't say its a jam since the fruit are whole and you eat that]. Unripe and Dried ones are often use as a sort of spice in stew to add sourness that is a bit sweet [similar to how tamarind is use].

[@haidararif6991]

Please somedays go to Kalimantan island in Indonesia. You can find lot of exotic wild fruit in there

[@WeirdExplorer]

I've been to the Malaysian side of borneo. Visiting Kalimantan is high on my list of future places to visit :)

[@AndreaAlison]

In Indonesia it's called belimbing wuluh (rounded starfruit).

[@erzsebetkovacs2527]

Thank you for the chutney recipe. Do you think the bilimbis (which might be difficult to get in some places) could be subbed for any other sour fruit (I'm thinking unripe grape or gooseberries) and that much garlic for, say, asafoetida (hing)?

[@WeirdExplorer]

The easiest replacement for the sourness would be a granny smith apple. But unripe grapes or European gooseberry would be even better... if you can get them. A little hing and one less clove of garlic would be even better :)

[@Erewhon2024]

If the sourness is oxalic acid (not especially safe), you could probably use the vegetable, sorrel (won't be crisp if cooked though) or a sub/tropical substitute like Hibiscus acetosella (not sure which acid it has, but it is used as a sorrel replacement).

[@johnnyearp52]

I used to have the same black plates that you have. I love idli !

[@johnnyearp52]

Idli are sour as well.

[@noranekonyaa5801]

Hey hey hey hey! It's these! Kamias is the name, where I live! It's super sour and I, as a fan of sour stuff, definitely love to snack on it.

[@irontobias]

The best way I could describe the flavor of star fruit is that it tastes like the fake strawberry scent they used to put on strawberry shortcake toys - but in the best way possible

[@akosijarako6455]

There's actually a starfuit variety that is extremely sour. Taste like bilimbi. Used to cook sour fish soup.

[@flyingflowers1889]

Yes ! I have tasted it here in Assam northeast India

[@fabimre]

Hi, those fruits Lso grow in Surinam, at the north coast of South America, between French Guyana and (formerly British) Guyana, and north of Brazil. They have a common name: Birambi. The Starfuit is called "Fransman Birambi" (Frenchman Birambi) and the smaller one is called just Birambi. (There are other varieties). The Birambi is mostly made into Birambi Chutney and mosty used by the Hindustany people, although all Surinam people like it (very hot, with Adjoema peppers, an even hotter variety of Habanero peppers).

[@san2063]

In kerala we make spicy chilli pickle with this.we eat it with biriyani. Strangely the sourness changes to intense umami.

[@FragrantlyOdious]

His reaction to the Bilimbi explains a lot xD

[@frankmacleod2565]

Interesting

[@RM-yf2lu]

Try tonka bean fruit and seeds...the seeds you can also add to your fakemaple syrup.

[@landonconway79]

You really need your own show on TV. This channel has grown up and your content is pleasant

[@lynemac2539]

But then he'd have to deal with production people, etc. Not as much fun.

[@landonconway79]

@lynemac2539 Your right. His content is fine the way it is.

[@AhmadIImaduddin]

In Indonesia we call it Belimbing Wuluh, the cousin of starfruit (belimbing)

[@Pyroific]

I wonder if they would be good candied?

[@alexc7857]

I see you've never tried the rare Black Diamond Apple or Arkansas Black Apple, or El Phips Sweet Pomegranate it apparently tastes of Tropical Punch, or a monkfruit off the tree made into traditional monkfruit tea

[@juliemcgugan1244]

The seeds are quite similar, aren't; they? I used to have a bilimbi tree in my garden, when I lived in Singapore, but to eat, I prefer the starfruit.

[@Neonblue84]

Unluckely i can't eat this fruit, i have kidney problems and it can kill me.😭

[@guavacupcake]

You're not missing much haha. It's soooooooo freaking deceptively sour

[@Neonblue84]

@@guavacupcake I love sourness 😭

[@Neonblue84]

@@guavacupcake sour makes happy ☺️

[@lynemac2539]

Yikes!

[@jfiekms]

why can you not eat it?

[@michaelvalentin9136]

Hello Jared! Wondering if it is on the docket to do a top 10 fruits you would love to see in everyone's local supermarket or something similar. I'm from NYC so I can actually get some of the fruits you find, but I know many americans are limited to what's available in a Walmart

[@corriemcginnis4400]

That looks like a nice hotel 👍

[@tktyga77]

Imagine how well bilimbi could work in a marinade, such as for unripe jackfruit or banana blossom (find out how the latter could be used in cooking)

[@SarahLovesFood]

I don't know why I never thought of this, but I didn't realize starfruit grew on trees

[@dragonpaws]

I used to live on Guam and got ripe strafruit all the time; now that i live back in the continental us i didnt realize just how unripe most starfruit here are. I miss that taste!

[@fluuufffffy1514]

I love my little carambola tree. When you touch its leaves they droop like they are shy. I wonder if the bilimbi tree is similar...

[@franzb69]

there's also another type of bilimbi that we call carambola (probably because of the scientific name) but it's more like a ball / spherical shape. they're all sour and are used in soups as a souring agent.

[@ShellyS2060]

OMG, turns out I have tasted this one before. I didn't know what it was at the time as I was in a restaurant. I made the mistake of popping one of the pickles straight into my mouth. To this day I kinda laugh when a candy calls itself "super sour" nah, you got nothing on bilimbi pickle

[@slinkyrabbit27]

I wonder if the bilimbi could be used in sauces for souring, I'd personally love to see it added to a hotsauce.

[@Eleora1997Msia]

oh my gosh !, my childhood memories. cook with chilli and salt is tasty, if it raw bad idea to be eaten, afraid it will cause health problem due too sour.

[@jamiecurran3544]

I've never had one of those but then again I've never tried starfruit either!😂

[@isaacthek]

Fruit: *exists* This channel: Let's put salt and chili pepper on this!

[@Revonish]

Will make a bilimbi gin - use recipe for sloe gin & substitute the bilimbi😁

[@Hortifox_the_gardener]

Wouldn't they be great as candied fruit? Since they are so sour.

[@triz5718]

in brazil we call this fruit carambola

[@mudgetheexpendable]

If you add chopped bilimbi fruits into pico de gallo, it makes the whole thing super-zippy. (Leave out the lime, maybe.)

[@WeirdExplorer]

great idea

[@TylerDollarhide]

I've never been able to find a ripe starfruit. They always are sour, or taste like soap.

[@noname-vp6vf]

Can you make a video review of "Andaliman" (Zanthoxylum Acanthopodium). It's a relative of the Sichuan peppercorn that is primarily used in Tapanuli cuisine of the region of North Sumatra, Indonesia.

[@WeirdExplorer]

I've been meaning to try that. I'm curious to see how it compares to other species

[@inoka7362]

In sri lanka we called billing for this fruit..oh my god....how you eat them..without coking ❤❤❤❤

[@interestings7866]

The star fruit at my local botanical gardens are so sour

[@monferno1]

Make quick brined pickle fruit to get double pickle

[@chazzychanz]

I'm used to eat those belimbing "wuluh" back in the days, but now those trees were mostly gone now :

[@Riff.Wraith]

4:22 I thought you didn't drink coffee!

[@masamunesword]

I always thought starfruit tastes a lot like kiwi fruit.

[@mrminer071166]

Ever since my memorably bad experience with a MONSTERA DELICIOSA FRUIT (Stick to just eating ONE BITE, you'll be fine!) I have realized the OXALIC ACID is not my friend. ;(

[@mrscary3105]

I had a lady give me a "Blimby" once in Thailand... make your toes curl!

[@زنكي]

Sourness will destroy the teeth, as vegan teeth

[@stefansauvageonwhat-a-twis1369]

Could you please elaborate?

[@Erewhon2024]

Gargle baking soda water shortly afterwards. Problem solved.

[@stefansauvageonwhat-a-twis1369]

I shall savor the day I get to make a joke inspired by your comment@@Erewhon2024

[@زنكي]

The acid in lemons and oranges can dissolve rocks and teeth.@@stefansauvageonwhat-a-twis1369

[@slothfulcobra]

pickle-tree, pump-a-rum

[@Wkwkwkw-e3w]

This tree grow like hundred fruits. even if you give it only water

[@RM-yf2lu]

That was a really immature bilimbi too😅

[@Chaos_Senpai]

Bilimbi should be called the buttfruit as it is butt shaped with the star shape in the middle

[@LarsSveen]

Weird. Starfruit to me taste like apples, not grapes. But like if apples were actually good (personally, not a fan of apples).

[@Locut0s]

Star fruits are so much better overseas… well almost all fruits are 😂

[@notbrent]

I ate a vada with kedavra...damn near killed me

[@shellnet411]

Starfruit is not my favorite flavor. It's extremely dry I like starfruit I've had them since I was a kid we would put them in fruit salad. That was my mom thing for any event of fruit salad and she usually have a watermelon in the summer and make that the bowl Back then it would've been cheap five bucks for a whole, watermelon dollar pound for grapes sometimes less couple dollars for strawberries three for dollar for oranges under $15 and you have a gigantic bowl of fruit salad with a small bit to refill

[@Tam.I.am.]

IDLI.