Mystery Ingredient: Week 5 | A Heaping Spoonful…

Oh my. Whatever could this be? The bumps indicate it may be some kind of citrus, Watson.

Let me zoom out a little and see if that helps.

It’s a lemon … It’s a grapefruit … It’s superman!

Actually no, it’s pomelo!

Pom-who-o? You ask. Or maybe you already know what a pomelo is, in which case touché. According to the guy at the farmer’s market, pomelo is an Asian grapefruit that tastes just like regular supermarket grapefruit except a bit sweeter. He said it’s great in savory salads, so I decided to let that guide me in my recipe.

Then I asked him to pick out two good pomelos, which he so graciously did. For someone like me, who doesn’t like grapefruit, that was a big mistake. I should have just bought one because it yields so much fruit there is no way I could eat it all without my tongue burning off.

Anyway, I got home, opened up a bag of Easter themed chocolate and started googling pomelo and saw that the skin is sometimes used as a container for salads and then I got excited, and off my ass, and began cooking.

If you wanna make a pomelo bowl, start by making a zig zag shape with a knife into the upper part of the pomelo to create a lid. Hard to explain with words, so here are some photos:

Once you’ve zig-zagged all around the pomelo, use your thumb to dig in between the skin and the flesh to separate them. Do that all around the pomelo a few times until the top comes off.

Now you want to get the fruit out of the skin. It’s the same process as the top lid except you need to dig deeper, physically and emotionally, and go around a few more times.

It looks like a pumpkin.

Now you want to peel and separate the segments like you would an orange. Except you don’t want any pith at all, just the inner flesh.

As you can see, all that flesh is just from half a pomelo. This fruit is a giver.

Now you have the pomelo all prepped. I decided to make a lump crab salad and a pomelo and avocado salsa to go along with it. Here it goes!

This is what you need:

To make the dressing for the crab salad you need some mayo, a few dashes of Worcestershire and a bunch of spices (found in the recipe card at the end of the post).

Mix it all up.

Add some green onions and cilantro.

Stir and add the crab.

Season with S&P

Gently mix, leaving pure chunks of crab still intact. Chill in the fridge until needed.

Next let’s make the pomelo & avocado salsa. You need avocado. Obvi.

Slice it into a grid, make sure you don’t cut through the skin and into your hand.

Spoon it into a bowl.

Mix in the pomelo.

Squeeze lemon on avocados to prevent them from browning, then add cilantro and S&P.

To make the dressing, squeeze some lemon juice into a bowl.

Add in some honey.

Trusty rusty S&P.

A drizzle of oil. I used grape seed oil, that’s why it’s neon greenish.

Whisk, whisk, whisk, until the dressing emulsifies.

Pour onto your salsa.

Add some chia seeds for good measure, if you have them.

Place the salsa into a bowl, or hollowed out pomelo.

(Side note: I should have added some lettuce to fill up the pomelo a bit more. It still looks ok, but I think it could be better, so if you’re gonna go the hollowed-out-pomelo route, add some romaine lettuce to the “salsa” and call it a salad.)