Mar 10 2008
Aji de tomate de árbol or tree tomato hot sauce
A tree tomato or tomate de arbol, also known as tamarillo, is a South American fruit that looks somewhat like a roma tomato, but pointier and with a thicker skin, tree tomatoes can be either yellow orangish and the inside will be orange or dark red and the inside is also dark red/almost purple. Tree tomatoes are great eaten just plain; they are used a lot in juices and in desserts (cooked in a panela or sugar cane syrup with cinnamon, clove and other spices). One of the most well known way to use them is to make an aji or hot sauce, which is usually mild to medium spicy and is served with a lot of different Ecuadorian dishes, it is a must have sauce for green plantain empanadas (or any empanadas), yuca bread, tamales, humitas (a fresh corn tamale) and goes great with potatoes, fish and meat, basically with almost anything.
It is very hard to find tree tomatoes in the US, most of the time when you find them they come from New Zealand (so please send us more), in Austin I was able to find them at Fiesta and also occasionally at Central Market. I have never seen fresh tree tomatoes in Seattle, I asked once at Pike Place Market and was told that several years ago an attempt to introduce them into Seattle was made but it wasn’t successful. You can find the tree tomato pulp frozen and it works well for juice but doesn’t do too well for this hot sauce, however if you can find the actual fruits frozen (which I have at La Espanola in Bellevue) then the hot sauce is almost as good as when made with the fresh fruit.
Ingredients:
5 tree tomatoes, fresh or frozen
2 ajies or hot peppers (serranos or red chilies are good options, habaneros if you are very brave)
2 tbs finely chopped white onion
1 tbs finely chopped cilantro
1 tbs lime or lemon juice
¼ cup water
Salt to taste
Preparation:
- If using fresh tree tomatoes peel them, boil them for about 5 minutes to make it easier to peel them.
- If using frozen tree tomatoes, defrost them over night in the fridge, then cut them in half and scoop out all the insides.
- Blend the tree tomatoes with the hot peppers (seeded and deveined if you want it very mild, you can always save a few seeds and add them in if it’s too mild).
- Transfer the blended mix of tree tomatoes and hot peppers to a small sauce pan, add the water (you can add more if you want a more liquid sauce) and cook on medium heat for about 5-8 minutes.
- Add the onion, lime juice, cilantro and salt to taste.
- Serve warm or cold.
Fresh yellow tamarillo or tree tomato
Frozen (defrosted) tamarillo or tree tomato
i LOVE hot sauce, and i put it almost everything. in fact, i’m tempted to carry a bottle around and whip it out in restaurants. this sounds deliciously spicy and if i can find some tree tomatoes, you can bet i’ll be making it!
this looks right up my alley. i’ll have to see if i can find these in one of the latin american supermarkets near my apartment.
I loved drinking tamarillo juice every day when I was in Ecquador…when I got home to LA I immediatly went to find them. Turns out, they arent hard to find here, just outrageously expensive, so now I limit myself to one glass of juice a year. Sigh. (They come out to about $3 each, and it breaks my heart)…next time I indulge, I think I will have to try this beautiful recipe too! Thank you for the inspiration!
I found frozen tree tomatoes in a small shop in Chicago. I made this aji, and it was excellent! I would also like to make tree tomato juice - do you have a recipe for that? Thanks for these great Ecuadorian recipes!!
Hi Kathleen, tree tomato juice is really easy to make, just remove the pulp from the tree tomatoes as you did for the aji, blend the pulp with sugar and water, I would use at least 1 tree tomato per each cup of water, strain and drink cold. It’s good but doesn’t compare to the juice made from fresh tree tomatoes.
Wow - I am so glad to find this recipe. I spent a couple of years in Ecuador and have been looking for a recipe to make this “Aji” as they called it in Ecuador.
Thank you so much. My mouth is watering thinking about having some. The only difference that I can see is that everywhere I had it they used red tamarillos.
I spotted fresh tamarillos from New Zealand or tree tomatoes at QFC in University Village - they were in an area that had a number of unusual fruits (expensive - $1.99 each)- then I found your blog - and noticed you hadn’t found any in Seattle - so hope this information is helpful.
Thanks for this amazing blog- I’m bookmarking this one.
Hi Odette, Thank you so much for that information, you are awesome! I will have to go visit that QFC.
I made this with the purple tree tomatoes and the salsa ended up looking a little like a blueberry smoothie, but very tasty. Next time I’ll try to find the yellow ones so I can get my husband to eat it, too - he’s into visuals and couldn’t get past the color.