CRISPY JACKFRUIT CHIPS
Chips of a gumless
jackfruit
Ingredients:
1) Fully mature
unripe jackfruit – 1 no.
2) Coconut oil
or other cooking oil – to deep fry
3) Powdered salt
– 1 tablespoon
To cut the
jackfruit:
Select a strong sharp knife for cutting the jackfruit to
pieces. Spread some old newspaper on your kitchen table. Cut 2 or 3 sheets of
newspaper to notebook sized pieces. Spread a couple of sheets of newspaper on a
platter or a wide basin to put the waste in. Pour a tablespoon of coconut oil
or cooking oil into a small bowl. Dip your fingers and grease the blade of the
knife. Grease your palms and fingers too by rubbing in the oil. This is
necessary since the gum of the jackfruit is quite sticky and often copious (except in the gumless jackfruit which I have
shown in the pictures).
Put the jackfruit on the table and hack strongly across the
middle. If it is not fully cut, put your weight on the knife, pushing it to and
fro till the fruit is cut to halves. Now you can see the white gum running out
from the core of the jackfruit. Quickly crumple up a piece of newspaper and mop
it up. Discard the soaked newspaper and use another, repeating 3 or 4 times
till the flow lessens.
Now cut each half lengthwise into halves, quarters and then
into one-eighths. You will get 15 triangular slices. Wipe off the gum oozing
out of the cut core portions. Grease your fingers with oil again. Now carefully
slice off and discard the core portions, exposing the top of each cream
coloured, pulp coated seed.
Pry out each seed from the mass of whitish nylon-like strands
which are in fact, unpollinated and consequently undeveloped seeds which happen
to be inedible. Once all the seeds with their pulpy jackets are out, clear the
table and discard the waste. Rub a bit more oil on your fingers, if they are
sticky with gum. Wipe off the oil with a piece of newspaper and wash your hands
with soap and water. Get some rest and refreshments before you start working on
the seeds.
***
Use a small knife to make a slit lengthwise around the pulp
jacket. Split it open to remove the seed together with its thin outermost skin.
Set aside the pulp jackets for making the chips.
Remove the thin outer skin from the seed and set aside for later use. Several delicious and nutritious dishes can be prepared using jackfruit seeds.
Now cut the pulp lengthwise into juliennes of around 4 to 5
mm. thickness.
To deep-fry:
Use a wide, deep and thick cast iron wok to deep-fry the
chips. Pour in the cooking oil till the wok is a bit more than half full. Set on
high heat. Tip the salt into a small bowl and pour in around 100 ml. of water. Stir
with a teaspoon till the salt is dissolved to the maximum and set aside.
As soon as the oil is hot and just about to smoke, tip in a
handful or two (depending on the size of
your wok and the quantity of oil) of jackfruit juliennes. Stir occasionally.
If they froth too much, there is danger of the oil spilling over and caching
fire (some roasted coconut oils have this
problem). So if the froth is heavy, just use a stainless steel wire sieve
to lift up the juliennes for a few seconds till the froth lessens and then dip
them back in.
Stir occasionally to fry all the chips evenly. When the chips
are almost done but before they turn brown, the bubbles in the oil will be
considerably lesser. Now is the time to tip in a teaspoonful of brine (salt solution). As the oil starts to
roar, remember to stir frequently so that the salt may deposit itself uniformly
onto the chips.
Once the roaring stops and the bubbles become lesser, you can
see the chips starting to turn golden brown. Turn down the heat and sue the
sieve to lift out the chips. Drain off the excess oil and set aside in a dry
stainless steel container. Now tip in the next batch, turn up the heat and continue
till all the chips are done.
Keep the container open on the table till the chips cool down
to room temperature. Cover tightly with a lid for keeping crisp while in
storage. Enjoy as a snack. The crispy
jackfruit chips are so tasty that you will find the tin empty in no time.
Enjoy!!!
Chips of a
regular jackfruit
Notes:
1)
Cast iron
woks, being thicker, are safer than stainless steel or aluminum woks and the
oil is far less likely to catch fire than while using the latter.
2)
Any type of
jackfruit, either ‘pazham’ or ‘varikka’ can be used to make the chips. It is
important that a) the
jackfruit is fully mature, but unripe and b) the jackfruit is collected before the advent of the
rainy season. During the rains, the jackfruit pulp tends to absorb a lot of
water and lacks taste. It also absorbs a lot of cooking oil. If by mistake, you
get such a rainy season jackfruit, do not fret, for you can simply salt the
pulp and keep for a year or more to make out of the season, delicious, salted jackfruit upkari. Do you want
the recipe?
3)
Adjust the
quantity of brine to get your desired saltiness. The first batch needs a bit
more but the later batches need less since some salt lingers in the oil.
