Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Cook's Guide entry for Cape gooseberries along with all the Cape gooseberries containing recipes presented on this site, with 0 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Cape gooseberries recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Cape gooseberries as a major wild food ingredient.

The Cape gooseberry (also known as Physalis, Golden berry, Peruvian cherry, ground tomatoes, husk cherry, Poha and Poha Berry) is the fruit of Physalis peruviana a member of the Solanaceae (Nightshade) family which, though native to Central America has been introduced to Africa, Australia and New Zealand as a commercial crop.

The fruit is a small round berry, about the size of a marble, full of small seeds. It is bright yellow when ripe, and very sweet, making it ideal for baking into pies and making jam. The fruit's most notable feature is the single papery pod (calyx) that covers each berry. Because of the fruit's decorative appearance, it is sometimes used in restaurants as an exotic garnish for desserts.

Cape gooseberries have a very high pectin content and can readily be made into jams. They can also be used to aid the setting of other jams and marmalades. Indeed, in India the Cape gooseberry is known as 'jam fruit'. Cape gooseberries also dry readily into highly-flavoured 'raisins'. Because of their unusual appearance they are often used in restaurants to garnish desserts.

The powdered husks of physalis acts as a thickener and can be used as a vegan substitute for eggs.