Sour green

The fruit of the Averrhoa bilimbi, known as kamias in the Philippines, is very sour—as sour as its green color would suggest. Some like it precisely because of that and eat it raw as a snack, usually first dipping it in rock salt. We also use it as an alternative to sampalok (tamarind) in making sinigang, a soupy sour stew that most Filipinos love, whether it is made of fish, pork, beef or shrimp. A young Filipino chef named Margarita "Gaita" Fores, who owns several restaurants in Metro Manila, popularized it as a fruit shake which is surprisingly very good and not as sour as one familiar with the fruit would think.