Something new...

I love fruits... fresh figs being on the top my list!
Came across some fruits that were new to me, thought I'd share pictures.

Above is something called a Dragon Fruit. From Vietnam I believe. The name I loved, it got me very excited to try it out. The appearance was very elegant, loved the bright fuchsia exterior and the contrasting interior, some varieties are a fantastic bright magenta on the inside! 

I really wanted to but the taste unfortunately I didn't like too much. It wasn't  horrible, it was slightly sweet, a little bit tart but mostly bland and not very juicy. The texture was nice however. You can eat all of the white pulp and the black seeds feel like kiwi seeds. I think I would use this for garnishes mostly. Can't see me gobbling down big bowls of it like I do with watermelon :-)

In case you wanna try it out I got this from a store called Viet Wah on Martin Luther King Jr. road in Seattle and was for around $5 per fruit. The fruit has some give to it when it is ripe sorta like a ripened peach.

This one is called jackfruit.

Was very much recommened by my dad (happy birthday bug) while he was visiting here back in November last year :-)

I had it for the first time several months ago. Got a cut up chunk of it from Uwajimaya and I also saw some recently at Mayuri as well.

LOVED IT! MmmMm VERY refreshing flavor, kinda like a cross between pineapple and umm something else, can't figure out what :-)

It is used as a vegetable and cooked into curries when it is unripe and green. And when ripe, the skin has dark brown patches all over it and presses down easily when pressed down with a finger. The seeds of the ripe fruit are edible, see my recipe here.

They are very very large and intimidating looking when buying whole. I was feeling adventerous and brought one home a few weeks ago from Viet Wah. I picked out the smallest of the lot and it weighed over 20 lbs! I had to search several videos on youtube to learn how to handle it. Gloves are an absolute must, can't stress this more! While cutting into it, a very sticky, super glue strength sap seaps out of the thick skin. That sap and the monsterous size of the fruit make it very difficult to handle.

I wanted to take pictures of the process but I got into it and just wanted to finish it quickly. Cleanup was a snap luckily, the sap can be easily cleaned with cooking oil :-) Thank God for that,  I thought I was gonna lose my beloved chef's knife :-) 

The taste............ mmmm .... so heavenly!

I shared it with friends and was loved by everyone who had it :-)

While I won't recommend tackling the big thing, get a small chunk of it and give it a try. You'd be so glad!

:-)