Canned makes that more available. I wonder if I should try the canned or the fresh first. For some reason the fruit is pre-cut here but hmm 9 dollars for a can seems… extreme.I’ll shop around and give it a go. The concept kind of grosses me out, fruit that reminds you of meat… but… it’s not alive, not an organ, and it’s not poisonous so I usually give most things a try, at least once.
I used to buy them all the time from Costco for cleaning, super cheap there. I stopped doing it when I entered my current field of work which doesn’t always have a stopping point… like always on.
I use gloves when doing stuff with paint or other chemicals that I don’t want to get on my hands. Never really used them for food prep.
I’ve always heard to used canned while experimenting with jackfruit for the first time. This is because canned (brined) jackfruit is usually picked in the most optimal state for use as a meat substitute. Generally speaking you want a young, green, basically unripe jackfruit for these types of applications. As the jackfruit gets older, it gets much sweeter and mushier. And what you find at the grocery store is generally closer to the ripe side of things. And as I’ve mentioned upthread, don’t buy the ripe jackfruit packed in syrup for savory dishes (usually only used for desserts).
As you get more advanced with jackfruit you could start to use more fresh cut stuff, but you’d have to know how to pick out the unripe jackfruit from the ripe (and also figure out what you want to do with the seeds, which are edible but not everyone likes them).
I was reading about jackfruit yesterday… Holy shit, that plant is freaking magical in its utility. The fruit is super easy to grow, and edible, but you can eat it at different stages and do all kinds of stuff with it. Starts out useful in savory stuff, then gets sweet and can be used in candy and stuff.
I have never had it when Ripe… I need to see what I can find. It looked really good though.
Never been a big glove user, to be honest. My hands are big and fat and clammy, so getting the right size is always tough to begin with, but I also find the loss of sensation/texture to be really weird, and gloves always make my hands feel weirdly wet.
Throw in that a lot of them aren’t super eco-friendly and that I’m enough of a neat freak in the kitchen that I’d be throwing them out every five minutes for a new, uncontaminated pair and I think I’ll just stick to my tactic of washing my hands with soap every five minutes and wearing out one kitchen towel per meal ;-)
I use gloves for chemicals and dealing with the cat boxes, but not for food prep or clean up. There, I just go through a ton of paper towels because I’m always reflexively wiping down the counter top.
It has occurred to me that a better system would be to have a couple of dish towels—dirty and “clean”—on the go, but the times I’ve tried that, I’ve never been able to train myself to reach for them.
I like to cut lots of hot peppers bare handed, then absent-mindedly rub my eyes after I’ve washed my hands really well. The jolt of massive burning pain reminds me that pepper oil doesn’t seem to come off even with a good soap treatment.
Like espressojim, I’ve bare handled cut peppers multiple times while making homemade salsa. It really only takes one time making a mistake before you buy a cheap box of latex gloves. And yes, I’ve been there, eyes and other regions. Fresh habaneros are no fucking joke.
'Cept I don’t buy gloves, and I’ve rubbed my eyes (and touched other unfortunate sensitive parts) a number of times. Like awful people in multiplayer video games, I just got used to it…
Now, if you asked me about cleaning or working with some nasty solvents or something? HELL YES GLOVES. But not yet for food, with the exception of these (because driving a knife blade through the palm of my hand while opening oysters really ruins the mood):
Okay, full disclosure, Jim. I have some cutting gloves. I’ve worn them once, and yet cut myself cutting things in the kitchen SO MANY TIMES. It’s a byproduct of knife sharpening as a side-hobby.
Good to know. I will use it on dessert, meat replacement… don’t care. Like Timex said below, I hear it’s a miracle fruit of some kind… But i heard you have to get past the taste. I am guessing the same store that sells jackfruit sells canned. I can try both!
Eh, at least the young green jacket doesn’t actually have much taste at all. Very neutral.
And I think that the ripe version is supposed to be a combination of mango, pineapple, bananas.
You might be confusing it with durian? Durian fruit smells and tastes disgusting by all accounts.
Oh, on an unrelated note, check this out.
https://www.imperfectproduce.com/
Well fruit that tastes like meat sounds weird, and I generally don’t like shredded meats like pulled pork or beef tamales. So aside from a handful of guys who talk about how meaty it tastes, no one has really told me it’s good so much as better for you.
Oh I heard there was a grocery chain that was doing this but I didn’t realize there were delivery options. That’s cool. Thank you.
Ah, to be clear, Jackfruit doesn’t have the FLAVOR of meat.
It has a texture which is kind of like meat, when young.
This is because it has a texture that is made of meaty fibers…once you try it, it’ll make sense.
You know how artichoke hearts have the part with the really young leaves? It’s kind of like that…
But they don’t really have any flavor on their own. They’ll end up tasting like whatever you cook them in.
So stainless steel?
j/k
Gotta cook 'em in cast iron to really get that metallic, blood-like tang to suffuse the jackfruit.
That probably reads really dirty.
I’m not sorry.
You are referring to myoglobin, nectar of the gods.
For @Fishbreath, in the interest of something like peace :)
The last of the ramen with the braised pork belly, soy-soaked eggs, sauteed shiitake mushrooms, steamed corn, diced green onions, and a sprinkling of shredded nori. The broth was supplemented by miso paste as well as the soy-mirin-sake mixture to much better results than previous. Both the gf and I found the sugar content of that latter mixture to be too high, but the umami-rich saltiness of the miso was far better.
On the side’s some tempura veggies–sweet potatoes, zucchini, and broccoli, plus a fresh dipping sauce made with dashi stock, soy sauce, and mirin.
Made a very simple bowl of udon noodle soup for my gf who revealed at the last possible second that she wanted none of the nice toppings I was gonna offer on it but would allow me to toss a couple of frozen shrimp in so she didn’t die of starvation. The broth is mostly dashi seasoned with soy, mirin, and sake, plus some green onions. Noodles from frozen, and they were nice. . .
. . . except my gf also learned tonight that she doesn’t really like the udon texture. Too thick and soft. Made her think of worms. Alas. I tried :)
And for me, some pork belly and veggie yakisoba. Very thinly sliced pork belly (shabu shabu cut, but it’s what I had, so I went with it) with onion, carrot, broccoli, bell pepper, shiitake, cabbage, and green onions, drizzled in a tangy-salty-sweet sauce made from Worcestershire, ketchup, soy, sugar, and oyster sauce.
It came out a little oily for my tastes–the pork belly released way more fat than I’d realized as it slowly steeped in veggies–but is otherwise fine. I topped it with some pickled ginger and served alongside some reheated tempura from the other night, including kakiage tempura–sliced onions and carrots that get dunked into the leftover batter after you make regular tempura, then deep-fried in clumps. In a way, it resembles Japanese pakoras and is very delicious as the onion begins to faintly caramelize.
You have gotten breaded veggie frying down! I’m still working on it.