Jackfruit vaaram

This has been jackfruit vaaram or chakka azhcha . Our Calicut sambandis ( the Malayalam word is quite different I know but what ?) loaded us with jackfruit from their garden when we visited them recently.

I love jackfruit but have never been faced with such  variety in various stages of ripeness.  So, I’ve had to experiment. Like the banana tree, all parts of the jackfruit can be used.

Fruit – Eaten when ripe.

Seeds  – Cooked with potato,  as curry in the usual South Indian style.

Strands – surrounding and separating the  fruit inside, can be fried into chips. I forgot whether they should be dried first but they tasted good, fried fresh.

Raw jackfruit – to be made into curry Kerala style -chakka  Puzhukku. Its like our kootu only without the dal.

The complete recipe is here. 

Or Cuban style from  BBC Good Cooking mag. The base is really very good, though I skipped many ingredients like the white wine and olives.Could be used for other vegetables or meat.

Cuban style Jackfruit Ropa Veja

Jackfruit – 1  raw, peeled and separated into stringy strands. 

Onions – 3 sliced.

Red pepper – 1 sliced long and thin

Yellow pepper – 1 sliced long and thin

Garlic cloves- 3 chopped

Tomatoes – 4 deseeded and chopped

Tomato paste – 2 tbsp

Tomato puree- 1/2 cup

Cumin powder – 1 tbsp

Coriander powder –  /2 tbsp

Green chilles – 3 cut in half lengthwise

chilli powder – 1/4 tsp (my addition)

 white wine  – 150 ml

olives – 1/2 cup

capers- 1/2 cup

chives- 3 tsp

oregano – 3 tbsp

parsley – 3 tbs

Method:

– Heat 75 ml oil in  large pan until it begins to smoke.

– add onions, bell peppers; allow them to turn a deep brown colour, stirring only when necessary

-add garlic and cook for 30 secs

– add tomato pieces and cook till it has given off liquid

– add tomato paste, cumin, coriander and cook for 5 min

– add water (white wine) and allow to boil

– add tomato puree, green chillies and capers

– bring liquid to boil. Add jackfruit with a little salt and simmer on low flame for about 2 hours until tender.

– add a little water when necessary

– add chives, parsley and oregano

Serve with a little ghee rice or saffron rice.

And if the fruit ripens too much, just turn it into chaka varati or jackfruit jam. Its simple, just takes a little time.

Ingredients :

jackfruit – 1 cup

powdered jaggery – 1.5 cups.

powdered cardamom (optional) 

ghee- 1/2 cup.

Pressure cook jackfruit and then mash well or grind in a mixie.

Dissolve the jaggery in a little water. Strain

In a heavy bottomed vessesl, heat jaggery, mix in jackfruit pulp and then cook them together on slow heat  for about 30 minutes. Start adding the ghee in dribbles and mix it in well.

Cool; store in fridge and take out small portions to eat with chappatis or bread or could be stuffed in something like poli.

Ready for Distribution . If you lived in ooty too, you would have got some:-)