Exotic fruits & vegetables

Bad_azz

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As I type I am just munching away on guava "crystal" - WOW delicious.
A new experience for me- I have always had the red ones before but I like this one.
I want to become more adventurous with food here & try lots of different fruits & veg that I see in the market, but I am clueless about many- bear in mind I am originally from the UK & grew up with apples , pears, oranges, & bananas & the usual sof summer fruits. A melon was exotic when I was growing up :D

Things I know for sure I have already tried
Kedondong - dunno the western name but I love its sharp kinda apply/peary taste.
Dragon fruit- tried a long time ago , wasn't a fan
Durian- I like the taste- hate the smell, don't go out of my way to eat it.
Jengkol- my addiction- I love this weird tasting bean thingy
Papaya- nothing new to me really- its ok but sometimes it has an unpleasant aroma - not a fave
Mangoes- deffo have gone up my list since I learnt how to get the flesh out with a glass- before that they were way too much hassle to peel
I really like the green vine fruit thingy too- lovely in soups -I think its name actually is "vine fruit"- I stopped being lazy and looked it up- here is the name I found :
chayote

(I apologise for all my highbrow culinary terms)

What fruits and veggies can you educate me about... I know I have tried lots but there are still lots out there...


Come on Pusp- I know for a fact you have eaten some strange things :p
 
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Rambutan, mangosteen,jambu and Jackfruit were all completely new fruits for me when I arrived.

I'm very happy to discover in my new garden I have starfruit, mangos (the big tasty ones), melon/watermelon (not sure which yet as they are still small) and jambu growing. I'm hoping some of the other trees are some sort of fruit too. We picked lots of starfruit yesterday so having juice today :).

My father in law has already planted lemon grass and turmeric in the garden. I've got a lovely trelis which I plan to grow beans up :)

I love the variety of fruit and veg you get all year around here.
 
I know for a fact you have eaten some strange things :p
Salak
Lansa
Duku
Amo
Sirsak
manggis
Gora (jambu air in bahasa indonesia)
Kelengkeng
Belimbing
Nangka
Rambutan


For veggies, I have an impressive list to advise you but most would be in Bahasa Manado. Let me see if I can sort out their name in Bahasa Indonesia.
 
2 fruits I particularly like, on top of Durian:
- Nangka (jackfruit)
- Cempedak

They are quite similar looking in terms of shape and color except Nangka is huge. Like the size of 2 or 3 basketballs wrapped in fabric.

Nangka:

552cf1cf0423bd3e128b4567.jpeg


buah-nangka-nih_20151226_101715.jpg




Nangka has a mild flavour and smell, not as aggressive to the senses as Durian (as in, it doesn't stink and is not repulsive to the vast majority of people), and has a firm texture when fresh.

It is used as a topping for many Indonesian shaved ice desserts but is also used as a vegetable in Padang cuisine as Sayur Nangka where it tastes a bit like artichokes.


Cempedak:

75569-4.jpg



Then there is Cempedak. This one is special to me. The taste and smell are a bit stronger than nangka. The texture is a bit gooey like durian. But what I love the most, is peeling/opening a cempedak the proper way. It's the same satisfying feeling as popping bubble wrap or opening Edamame pods.

The thing about Cempedak is that the skin is full of this very sticky sap. So before handling the fruit, you must use plastig gloves or rub your hands with cooking oil. It's a real pain to get rid of that sticky mess. If you have some on your fingers by mistake, just use oil to rub it off and then wash the oil off with soap.

So to open it, first you wrap it in plastic or news paper and roll it a bit on your counter top, as if kneeding dough. This is to make the pods loosen up a bit from the skin. Then ou simply make 3 cuts in the skin with a sharp knife but not too deep:
1. Around the circumference near the stem
2. Around the circumference near the bottom
3. One longitudinal cut from top to bottom connecting the 2 circumference cuts

Then you widen that longitudinal cut with your finger a bit and pull on the stem. If the fruit is ripe, all the pods will come out at once still attached to the spine (which extends from the stem).

To eat, you simply pick off the pods from the stem and gobble them up. Watch out for the seeds though.

Some people remove the seeds and roll the flesh in dough to then be deep fried. Delicious.

The seeds can also be eaten. Boil or steam them and eat like chest nuts (same with nangka).

Sorry, I don't have instructions for nangka. It's so huge that it makes no sense to buy a whole fruit unless you have a dozen people who like stuffing themselves with nangka at home. So I usually buy the pods already separated at the shop.
 
I'm a huge lover of rambutan. My wife loves all fruit but i have nothing to add to the list. we have a few "cherry" trees around which the neighbourhood kids seem to love, as they're forever clambering up the trees and walls to get to them. The local bats are very busy eating them each night too.
 
It's so huge that it makes no sense to buy a whole fruit unless you have a dozen people who like stuffing themselves with nangka at home.
You just need three kids and a fruit raving father. Been there done that.

We've opened a 11 kg (!) Nangka yesterday.
 
Hey you guys have already covered all the fruits I'm aware of in Indonesia, plus a few I didn't know about. So I will have to share with you a Hawaii fruit: jabuticaba (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabuticaba). I'm sure it would grow well in Indonesia but it is apparently originally from Brazil and perhaps that's why it is not found here. Wikipedia indicates that it is available in Taiwan, though.

Jabuticaba's taste is a little like duku - kind of peppery (at least to me). There is a winery on the Big Island that used to make a jabuticaba red wine (although I think it was just a grape wine infused with a bit of jabuticaba, rather than a wine that started by fermenting jabuticaba). It was rather nice.
 
Hey you guys have already covered all the fruits I'm aware of in Indonesia, plus a few I didn't know about. So I will have to share with you a Hawaii fruit: jabuticaba (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabuticaba). I'm sure it would grow well in Indonesia but it is apparently originally from Brazil and perhaps that's why it is not found here. Wikipedia indicates that it is available in Taiwan, though.

Jabuticaba's taste is a little like duku - kind of peppery (at least to me). There is a winery on the Big Island that used to make a jabuticaba red wine (although I think it was just a grape wine infused with a bit of jabuticaba, rather than a wine that started by fermenting jabuticaba). It was rather nice.
Interesting. Crazy how it seems to cover the tree trunk like the pictures show.
 
I love sirsak, jambu air, manggis(mangosteen), rambutan , especially the ones from our tree, love nanka- especially from the padang shop. what are those lil fruit called that look like new potatoes but much like lychee inside? (I bought a kilo of them when I first arrived here , thinking they were baby potatoes - hahaha the planned recipe didn't work out ;)

Anyone eaten the black maize here & liked it? What does that taste like?
 
Mangosteens are my favorite. Then mangoes. BA, what is this glass method of removing mango flesh you speak of? I cut off the sides and then make "hedgehogs" of them by criss crossing lines from the inside towards the skin. I just chew on the seed. I'd like to see your method.
 
just cut off the sides then slide a small glass up between the skin & the flesh- crazy easy & no sticky fingers

I guess it depends on how you intend to use it- but this method is great for processing a lot for juicing or for cooking or for brewing :)
or for peeps who can cope without pretty food & just wanna eat it, like now!
 
just cut off the sides then slide a small glass up between the skin & the flesh- crazy easy & no sticky fingers

I guess it depends on how you intend to use it- but this method is great for processing a lot for juicing or for cooking or for brewing :)
or for peeps who can cope without pretty food & just wanna eat it, like now!

I'll have to give it a go once a I get a few. Seems like the cutting edge of simplicity.
 
I love sirsak, jambu air, manggis(mangosteen), rambutan , especially the ones from our tree, love nanka- especially from the padang shop. what are those lil fruit called that look like new potatoes but much like lychee inside? (I bought a kilo of them when I first arrived here , thinking they were baby potatoes - hahaha the planned recipe didn't work out ;)

Anyone eaten the black maize here & liked it? What does that taste like?

The fact that they look like new potatoes made for a good practical joke. Mixed some of these potatoes with the real fruits and then watched when my father in law bit into it. Hehehe
 
You just need three kids and a fruit raving father. Been there done that.

We've opened a 11 kg (!) Nangka yesterday.

Hahaha I'm not surprised! I recall you saying not long ago how you ate a ton of durian all by yourself.
 
I've got a Jabuticaba or Jaboticaba in Australia, fruits profusely sometimes & birds can't see the fruit because it's hidden on the trunks & branches. Best eaten chilled & outdoors because of the seeds, just grab a handful, stuff em' in your gob, chew them gently & machine gun the seeds out.

Also juice my starfruit (carambola) by cutting the tough ends & spines off, chuck em' in a blender then force strain the pulp.

Has anyone mentioned Pineapple? For mine, a good pineapple is hard to beat, I've got a Kensington Pride (Bowen Special) mango tree but the thing with mangoes I reckon is that no matter how good they are you can have too many & get sick of em' after a while unlike pineapples
 
Ahhhh, I've missed a lot of these lovely fruits!

I love mangosteens, nangka (jackfruit), salak, jambu air, belimbing, rambutan, sirsak, duku... I could eat the aforementioned all day everyday.
 
Is it called sawo BA? Or something like that. It's very sweet like pure sugar sweet.
 
Does anyone know why there are "malang apples"? Aren't apples from American (Johnny Appleseed and all)?

I got malang apples, they were like crab apples I guess except I never really ate a crab apple so who knows.
 
Does anyone know why there are "malang apples"? Aren't apples from American (Johnny Appleseed and all)?

I got malang apples, they were like crab apples I guess except I never really ate a crab apple so who knows.
I'd guess they call them that because they are a special type of apple adapted to grow in malang. Many temperate zone fruit trees, including most apples, need a certain amount of "chill hours" per year in order to bear fruit. if they don't get the cold they need, they won't do it. Humans, however, refuse to accept such limitations, so we have bred fruit trees to reduce this need. I'm guessing the Malang apple is one such plant.
The alternative is to do what I have heard the Israelis do, grow your fruit trees in giant bags and put them in a giant freezer once a year.
 

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