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Jackfruit

This is a huge tropical fruit,weighing up to over 10 kilograms sometimes,a giant among the Malaysian fruits.
It is the jackfruit, the Malay name for jackfruit is nangka.
The jackfruit is oblong in shape,its skin is greenish in colour but turns yellowish when ripen.The skin is dimpled,soft and sligntly bouncy to the touch.
Jackfruit also has its own perculiar strong aroma,strong but not as strong as the durian and the chempedak.A ripen jackfruit is easy to be cut open.Most people chop it into cylindrical rings or triangular cubes for ease of handling.
When cut open,the yellowish fleshy seeds of the jackfruit will be exposed, sticking to a rod-like core.Covering the seeds are grass-like soft fibres which are also yellow in colour, sometimes making it hard to see the seeds, and you have to use your fingers to dig inside to find the seeds. The flesh of the jackfruit is very soft and very sweet.There are two varieties,one is springy to bite while the other is mushy.There are occassions you may encounter some jackfruit seeds which are tasteless,but never sour.
If you come across a sour jackfruit,spit it out quickly and throw the whole fruit away.it has already gone bad.
Here is a little trick when cutting open the jackfruit.It has sticky gum on its skin when cut open.It will stick to the chopper,hands and whatever that comes into contact with it.The scenario is pretty much similar to removing a piece of pizza from its plate.
To avoid this messy situation, coat your chopper and hands with cooking oil using a piece of cloth soaked in oil before you proceed to open a jackfruit with your chopper.The oil will prevent the gum from getting stuck to your chopper and fingers.

Jackfruit trees are big and tall,the trunk and branches have to be strong enough to let the matured fruits to hang on to them.The jackfruits are too heavy to attach themselves to the end of the branches as the rambutan and mango do. The leaves of jackfruit are oval shaped,they turn yellow,red and brown before falling off.Therefore a jackfruit tree is quite colourful sometimes.Other tropical trees' leaves fall when they are still green,therefore tropical trees are always green.

Inside the fleshy seed is a hard core, covered in a clear plastic like membrane.Most people will throw it away,or use it to grow a new seedling.But do you know that it can eaten? Wash the seeds,put them in a pot and cover them with just enough water,add some salt.Boil them over slow fire for about half an hour.Tear open the clear membrane the seed will be soft and slightly salty now.It tastes like some kind of nuts.Next time don't throw the seeds away,try it out.

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