Try a Jackfruit!

I had tried jackfruit in various canned and pre-packaged dishes but had not ever considered buying a fresh jackfruit.  When I saw one at the store, I had to buy it!  It weighed nearly 20 lbs. and was a little intimidating.  Mine cost about $1.20 per pound so it was roughly a $25 investment.  After a little research, I discovered that my jackfruit was ripe and ready to be eaten.  Most of the canned varieties are young fruit that takes on the marinade/seasoning you add to it, so better for savory dishes.

Once these jackfruits are ripe you need to use within a day or so.  You can see that within two days from getting my jackfruit home from the store, it had developed a small dark patch on it.  The inside was still fine.  I started by cutting the fruit in half.

Here you can see what the inside looks like, seeds, fruit pods, and the flesh that doesn’t get eaten at this point (but would have been made into a savory dish in a younger fruit).  You can roast or boil the seeds which are edible.  I did not get around to this but I did save a couple to try to grow. 

You can see that this is kind of a big job, separating the fruit pods from the flesh and the seeds.  My advice, get the whole family involved!

Here you can see the seeds and the fruit pods.  The fruit pods taste like a combination of pineapple, bannana and mango – I love them.

Besides eating the fruit plain, we were given a great recommendation by a friend of ours who is a chef to add the blended jackfruit to a cheese cake – absolutely the best cheese cake I’ve ever eaten!  Recipe:  take a traditional cheese cake recipe and add 1 1/2 blended jackfruit to the mixture.  It will turn out lighter and more flavorful than traditional cheese cake.

 

I couldn’t resist throwing a few of those seeds in pots, and my jack trees are already growing!  Check out my garden for free blogs ( pineapple and papaya) if you are interested in growing your kitchen scraps.