Do you know this very interesting fact about Jack fruit ? What you eat when its raw is thrown away when its ripen.
We have got quite a good number of Jackfruit this year at my native and they have been growing without any effort. This is the time when we eat them raw - the stringy flesh is a nice replacement of any meat - it takes the flavor of the spices that you cook with. So it can taste like chicken or mutton based on how you prepare - and it imitates well as a replacement for meat. So if you have a real good cooking skill, it will be difficult to differentiate if you tell people it's meat. We do a variety of items out of it, but cutting it raw is the most challenging task - the sticky latex substance will be a real mess, if you do not know how to deal with it. I have tried to cut it myself once and I really messed up and took hours to clean them. Since I was in my native, I had the help from an experienced hand - our maid who is with us for last three decades. After Mom, she is the one who knows most about the old techniques - you need to put generous amounts of oil on your hands and the tool that you use to cut it. So she cut it clean and the lady was very happy to use them instantly.
If you watch the video close then you can observe, we are using only the flesh and discarding the inner core that contains the jackfruit and the tendrils. This is a very interesting fact about Jackfruit - when its raw, we eat the soft flesh and when its ripen, we throw away this flesh and eat the jackfruit. And do you also know that this is the largest tree-borne fruit in the world ?
I have seen in some videos online, where, people retain these inner part (having the jackfruit) when using in the raw form, and I did the same mistake first time, looking at these online techniques. But it did not taste the same as Mom used to cook. So when I inquired with her, I could figure out where the problem was. This soft flesh (without the inner part) becomes very soft when boiled and can replace all most all your meat needs, if you prepare it thinking as if you are cooking your meat. I bet, the taste will be near similar. And you can store these for long time as well - I got a lot and stored them to enjoy in frequent intervals. We have got a lot of them , it was fun to see a lot growing at the root of a tree, that was covered earlier. Little did we realize, there were so many including a huge one.
We have left that big one to ripen - they will be ready sooner than the smaller ones. And we will continue eating the small ones coming up till next month.
And I am not going to tell about the health benefits, its even used as medicine, but I love the taste - both raw and ripe. I could eat one alone, when I was young. And this fry today, made out of those raw jackfruit was mouth watering.
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