I know Ecuador has a really varied flavour profile to their cuisine, but I keep on gravitating to the tart fruit recipes – there’s so many great choices! I’m making colada de avena, a strained oat drink, drunk hot or cold, often made with fruit. There’s a whole bunch of different ways to make it across South America; I’m trying one with naranjilla fruit.

Naranjillas (also called lulo) are sour fruit that has a flavour somewhere between lime and rhubarb (they’re related to tamarillos). I can’t get any fresh in my part of Canada, but frozen pulp works fine for this recipe. Recipe from Laylita’s Recipes. I went for a bit less panela, but it’s still needed as it’s a very tart fruit.

The long simmer with the cinnamon sticks made my kitchen smell heavenly. I tried the colada hot off the stove – it’s very thick, sweet and sour, with a good cinnamon aftertaste. It sticks to your ribs and is very warming (and warm! the consistency keeps it hot for a long time, so be careful sipping).

I also tried it cold the next day for breakfast, it’s like a nice smoothie. I think I’m going to make some more variations on this recipe. There’s a lot of delicious tropical fruits that are native to Ecuador, so I picked up a few other packs of frozen pulp to try in coladas: sapote (mamey), banana passionfruit (curuba / taxo), and guava (which is called guayaba in Ecuador, because confusingly a totally different fruit is called guava there).