Jackfruit

Jaque

What it is

The largest fruit borne on any tree — heavy specimens pass fifty kilos — it reaches the kitchen as two ingredients in one skin: ripe, the golden bulbs are perfumed and honeyed; unripe, the same flesh is neutral and pulls apart in fibres like poultry. Both the French jaque and the English jackfruit come from chakka, the Malayalam word the first Portuguese traders in Kerala wrote down.

In the kitchen

Oil the blade and your hands before breaking one down — the white latex is glue and water will not shift it, while oil lifts it off. For the savoury preparation buy it tinned in brine, never in syrup: the syrup version is the ripe fruit and cannot be rescued.

Goes with

Coconut milk Turmeric Chili pepper Garam masala Lime Curry leaf Ginger Palm sugar

In season alongside

Cantaloupe melon Tropea red onion Bergeron apricot Acacia honey Pauillac lamb Angelica

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