Fresh Jackfruit
Will it BBQ? Jackfruit!
In this segment we pose the question and the answer to Will it BBQ? So much more than just hamburgers, hot dogs, and other meats can be BBQ'd, Grilled, or Smoked. And, this is where we try out unique ideas for cooking on a grill or smoker. This week we are BBQ'ing Jackfruit and letting you know if it will BBQ or not!
Prep Time
10 minutes
Cook Time
35 minutes
Ingredients
2 Cans of Green Jackfruit
Fresh Jackfruit
BBQ Sauce
Bread Rolls
Utensils Needed
Stark Cutting Board
Boning Knife
Instructions
One of the suggestions we got for will it bbq was JackFruit. Neither Austin or I had ever tried Jackfruit so we started doing some research and testing. We found that there are two basic ways to eat Jackfruit. The first is the ripened fruit which you can just eat like you would any other fruit or use in a dessert and the other way is the green or un-ripened fruit which is what a lot of people are using as a meat substitute. So we went out and got some of both.
First, let’s talk about the un-ripened fruit or green jackfruit. It comes in a can with either water or syrup, we bought the can with just the water. You need to rinse it and dry it first, then there might be a part of the core attached to the pieces so you should chop those off. Then you want to put them in a pan with some BBQ sauce and onions and garlic and saute them for about 5 minutes. We wanted them to taste like that had come off the bbq though so instead of doing this with a stove or oven we put them in our pellet grill for 30 minutes at about 400° and added more BBQ sauce and a little bit of water. I went back to it after about 15 minutes and mashed it up. I did this again once it was totally done. We used Sizzlin Green Chili as our BBQ Sauce.
The other way to eat Jackfruit is just like you would any other fruit. First your need to be very careful though, this stuff is extremely sticky and will stain clothing apparently. So we put down a stark disposable cutting board and even oiled the blade of our knife. First you need to cut out the core, it was fairly simple to do, just be careful and take it out in sections if needed. Then you have all these “pods” with the flesh of the fruit around a seed. You need to separate these from the skin, I found a knife was the easiest way to do this and then remove the seed as well as a thin skin that surrounds the seed. After that there is something that resembles corn silk around the side of the fruit that has to be removed as well. This stuff is very sticky so make sure you are wearing gloves when doing it! So just eating it was okay but we wanted to see if it would BBQ so we put it on a non-stick mesh grilling basket and sprinkled cinnamon toast shake on some of them and grilled it for 10 minutes at 400°
So, Will it BBQ?
The Green Jackfruit had an appearance and texture that was surprisingly close to a real pulled pork sandwich. It was not an exact match but it was pretty close and certainly tasted nothing like a fruit. I will almost certainly be making this for my vegetarian wife at some point, so yes, it will BBQ!
The fresh Jackfruit was difficult to prepare, if you have the option of purchasing some that has already been cut and seeded I would go with that but it was still very tasty once we BBQ’d it! It was even tasty before, it had a very fresh taste to it, similar to cantaloupe but less juicy. Once we BBQ’d it with Cinnamon Toast Shake it was really good! Better than either the Watermelon or Pineapple that we had done previously.
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