Bush tomato
Also desert raisin, akadjura.
Latin name: Solanum centrale. This is a true member of the Solanum family, along with garden tomato, capsicum, and so on.
Eating
- The fruit of a sparse desert plant.
- Intense spicy, caramelly, tomato-ey flavour with a bitter edge.
- Best used as a spice rather than a central ingredient.
- When dried and crushed to a powder, is known as “akadjura” (spelling will vary).
- Whole berries work well in sauces and flavourings for meat.
- Akadjura is very good mixed with salt and used to enhance savoury dishes.
- Mixes well with flour to make breads, pasta, etc.
- Mixes surprisingly well with coffee to round out the coffee flavour.
Growing
- We've not grown it ourselves so this is rather extrapolated from our knowledge of its growing habits!
- Found naturally in the desert regions of central Australia.
- Appreciates this region's lack of humidity, but needs to be protected against the daytime winter temperatures and heavy soils.
- Would do well in a pot, brought inside in winter.
- Might work as an annual.
- There is an excellent Bush Tomato Handbook which we are using as our main resource for growing this plant.