Friday, June 26, 2009

How to Cut a Jackfruit

What is a jackfruit? A jackfruit is the world largest tropical fruit. It can weigh over 80lbs. Jackfruit contains Vitamin A, Vitamin C, thiamin, riboflavin, calcium, potassium, sodium, zinc, and niacin. 100 grams of jackfruit contains only 94 calories.

I love to this fruit so does my mom. The two of us purchased 7 jackfruits for this season already! Now, a lot of you may know how to eat but do you know how to pick and open one? Let me teach you what I've learned from my mum. :)


1. Pick a jackfruit that is uniform all around. Reason for this is because you'll get more flesh (bulb) than fibre (rags). Look at the one I picked below. Rags are okay to eat but it have no taste to it. Some people use it to cook...but I just get rid of it since I don't know what to cook it with.

2. Finding a ripe jackfruit. When ripe, the fruit will give a little when pressed. You can also smell the aroma of the fruit. If the jackfruit is hard as a rock and no aroma, then you should leave it alone since it will not ripe until a few days or it will never ripe since they picked too soon.

3. Some jackfruit have green skin and some have yellow skin like the one below. If you see a black skin jackfruit, leave it alone as it is rotten or overripe. Once a jackfruit overripe, it does not taste good at all and might make you sick. :) Some jackfruit have yellow, dark yellow, or orange flesh. Some flesh is more crunchy than the other. You can never really tell by the skin unless you're an expert. :)

Cut the jackfruit in half.
As you can see, I picked a really good fruit. It is mainly flesh!!! The flesh is also very big and thick. Very sweet.

Do not touch the gum as it will glue all your fingers together.
Now use one of the magazine paper and wipe the gum off the fruit. Use as many papers as needed. Or use paper towel...but magazine is better.
Cut the fruit in halves again.

Remove the central core as it is inedible. Get ready to clean the gum again.

Now cut the bottom of the bulbs. This will make it easier to get the bulbs out from the skin. As you can see if you pick a good one then you should have more bulbs than rags.
Clean off the rags and eat the bulbs. Cover and save the uncut fruit in the refrigerator to slow down the ripening process. The bulbs can be kept in air tight container in the refrigerator for at least a week! Better when it's cold!!!

Some people...include my mom eat the seeds. She cooks the seeds over boiling water for over 5 minutes and then add in a dash of salt. The seeds can also be roasted. It tastes like chestnut. Of course just eat the inside of the seeds and not the skin. :)

Cleaning is the hard part. But if you have fluid oil or kerosene oil use it to clean the knive and hands first then wash off with soap and water. It should works with vegetable oil too but takes longer.

Hope you learn something today!

9 comments:

cin said...

hey that's mom!! u should make some Sui egg. u know that white thing mom makes and u eat with meat on top and with fish sauce. I want some banh tiu. i think thats how u spell it.

Kristy said...

hey Cin,

hahhaa..what are you writing?lol. Why you didn't request that when you was home? Maybe I should make some banh tieu for myself...lol

Unknown said...

ch3rri,

Amazing explanation and nice pics too. I come from the southern part of India, place called Mangalore, and we too use ripe and raw jackfruit in various preparations. I came across your blog while trying to look for a new jackfruit recipe. Could you perhaps share your banh tieu recipe?

shenoy.

Kristy said...

Here is the post to the banh tieu. http://ch3rri-blossoms.blogspot.com/2010/01/hollow-breads-banh-tieu.html

Unknown said...

hii,
Thanks a lot for posting such a detailed explanation of how to purchase n cut ur way thru jackfruit:)I've been cravin for this fruit and had no clue how to go abt buyin one.The pics r really good too.I was browsing for some jackfruit recipes;do you or ur mom by any chance know how to prepare a veg dish with jackfruit seeds?

Kristy said...

Hi Tweety,

We usually eat the pulps and my mom like to save the seeds. She usually boil the seeds to cook them. I believe she add a tiny bit of salt for flavor. Then she just eat them like that. You can also roast these seeds. Very good that way too. But we never use it on veg. dishes.

Anonymous said...

I'm glad i came across this site... It helped so much.. Ive been living at my house 3yrs & nevr knew the huge tree outside was that of a jackfruit tree bc it never grown any fruit until now... So i've been educating myself. I have a bunch but i took one down yesterday & its abt 13in & abt 7lbs. I know now from reading this that its an immature one.. I may use it for a stew. Your info was very detailed soo thanks :)

manju said...

Thanks for the very informative post on my favorite fruit!

Anonymous said...

Hi, Thanks a lot for your great effort. Just few more points for easy cutting.

1) Apply Veg / Olive Oil for knife and hands frequently before and during cutting for easy cleaning,

2) Do not cut the fruit fully, instead cut the skin alone and pull and part the fruit to avoid cut seed and spoiled fruit due to glue sticking.