Hail to the king, baby!

Not only does it look like it could physically hurt you, but anyone who has eaten one will tell you that you shouldn’t open it inside your house.  Ever. You see, the durian has a fragrance about it… a certain air.  How does one put it?  Let’s let Anthony Bourdain, a durian lover, help me out:

“God it stank! It smelled like you’d buried somebody holding a big wheel of Stilton in his arms, then dug him up a few weeks later.”

“Its taste can only be described as…indescribable, something you will either love or despise. [...] Your breath will smell as if you’d been French-kissing your dead grandmother.”

Yes, that is what someone who likes it thinks… so in case you think he’s biased, here’s what Richard Serling has to say:

“[I]ts odor is best described as pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock. It can be smelled from yards away.”

Oh yeah… are your tastebuds watering yet?  Now, I want to tell you that while the fruit does smell, the taste and texture is something you’ll never come across again.  The texture of the fruit is something like a flan or a pudding: soft and creamy.  The flavor is quite hard to describe… I tasted a ton of tropical flavors that I likened to mango, banana and papaya and other flavors I couldn’t quite make out.  The little downside to eating the fruit is that when swallowing and you breathe in, you suddenly get a smell of the fruit and that may take some getting used to.

When it comes to the smell, I can best describe it as taking a bunch of ripe bananas and delicately setting them on a pile of rotting onions.  While nothing in the smell specifically screams “onion” to me in particular, something in it just triggers that.  Others I talked to didn’t get onion, rather they got a strong cheese.  I assume it is more of an association thing rather than the smell itself… either way, it brings out very interesting responses from people.

Due to the massive scent, scary exterior and awesome texture, durian has taken on the moniker of the “king of fruits” and it is easy to see why.  So, when out looking for some fish sauce, you can understand why I instantly had to buy this after seeing it sitting there… waiting for me.  Upon lifting the thing (using its safe mesh bag) and bringing it to the counter I was greeted with great excitement from the woman up front.  It seems not many people are fans of this fruit and she was hoping that I either was or would become one.  She even went so far as to tell me that if I like it she can get me other things, such as durian cake.  Interesting!

After buying my fruit and taking it home, I sat it on my counter and went about doing some research.  The first thing I wanted to know was: “Why does it have a black spot on it… is it bad?”

Frostbite?

Digging around told me that it was a cold injury and that many durians purchased in the US will probably have it.  Why?  Well, it seems that the easiest way to transport a durian is to freeze it, then ship it over here and defrost it.  Unfortunately most places still consider it to be “fresh,” but if I took a watermelon, froze it, thawed it and gave it to you, while it’d still be a watermelon, it’d be a little “off” when it came to flavor/texture.  I’m told that the durian is the same way and that the cold actually dampens the smell and, like an avocado, stops it from ripening fully.  That being said, if you want to try one outside of Asia, this is pretty much it. Even though the durian has many, many cultivars, only one is available to the international market… sad, no?

So, what else to do but crack it open, right?  Traditionally you lay the fruit on newspapers, but all I had was line paper… guess it had to do!  I will suggest to you that you do not skip this step, though, as it greatly helps with the cleanup.  The second suggestion, as noted by everyone, is to open it outside.  While you get a little bit of a sweet smell from the outside of the fruit, it really disguises the scent from within.  Using a large kitchen knife I split the beast in two, being careful to not cut myself on the very sharp spines and then leaned down to take a whiff.  Yep… it works as advertised, no missing that scent.  Within a couple minutes the smell spread out from just at the fruit to the entire balcony.  I’m happy that it wasn’t a hot, sunny day or else I have a feeling that many people would be wondering just what I was hacking away at up there.

Karate chop!

Braaaaainsss!

For SCIENCE!!

Do not eat!

You can see that the fruit surrounds a hard seed, which, unfortunately, I found out is edible if cooked after I had already disposed of them. Next time I’ll have to give that a try.  A quick warning, though… uncooked durian seeds are toxic, so do not eat them raw.  Seriously.

Fresh durian seeds contain [...] cyclopropene fatty acids including sterculic, dihydrosterculic and malvalic acids [...]. Due to the toxic and perhaps carcinogenic nature of these substances, it would be unwise to ingest uncooked durian seeds.

A fair warning to all of you getting ready to eat one of these: They’re messy. Expect to have your hands covered in fruit while digging it out from the shell and deseeding it.  In fact, many people eat the fruit with their hands, as it really is easier than using a spoon and/or fork.

When you’re all done eating, I’d suggest taking out the remaining seeds, putting the flesh in a baggie, then that in another baggie and either refrigerate (if you plan on eating it the next day) or freeze it.  Be warned, you may need to use a few bags, as the smell actually makes it through the plastic and will quickly make everything smell like durian.  I ended up freezing mine and later in the week I made durian cake (recipe will be coming) with the leftovers.

So, have any of you folks tried durian?  Have you tried it fresh (over in Asia) or thawed elsewhere?  Your thoughts?  Honestly, I think I like it!  It is so unlike anything else that if given the chance, I’d recommend everyone give it a taste!

Until now.

A couple of weeks ago Jess sent me this article with a ton of excitement:

Tim Byrne picked an apple from the spindly tree, sliced it and popped a chunk into his mouth. He couldn’t have been more pleased as he chomped and got a juicy blast of sweet-tart flavor.”This is what’s got us excited,” Byrne said as he shared samples from a perfectly ripe SweeTango apple, which he and other growers are about to introduce as the successor to the incredibly successful Honeycrisp.

The SweeTango?  Successor to the Honeycrisp??  This I had to see!  Unfortunately it will still be a couple of years before it reaches most supermarkets in the US, so I had to find a different way.  The article said it was being sold in select Farmer’s Markets in Minnesota, so I did some digging and e-mailing, trying to find a place to get one of these apples.

As fate would have it, I ended up getting in touch with Tim Byrne of Pepin Heights Orchard, himself.  Seems Tim is very proud of his apples and was more than happy to send me a few of these brand new apples to try.  Excellent!  Now, it wasn’t just me who was happy, but Jess was, too.  You see, Jessica hates apples.  Really, she hates them with a passion.  The only apples and apple products she likes are listed below:

• Caramel Apples
• Honeycrisp Apples
• Apple Pie/Crisp

Yeah, that’s it.  She doesn’t like candy apples, apple pastries, apple cider, apple sauce, or any other apple breed.  I’ve tried bring home everything from Gala to Pink Ladies and she hates ‘em all.  So the possibility of an apple that could add to her repertoire would be glorious.  Fast forward a week and our questions were soon to be answered.

These look like normal apples, but contained within is the secret to fruit happiness.

Look at those apples… you wouldn’t guess that they were mindblowingly good just from looking at them. They don’t look like anything special, but let me tell you, they are now my favorite apple, hands down.  Jess and I had to try one the second we got the box open and it was just perfectly crisp and juicy.  Very sweet with just a bit of a tang at the end.  It was the perfect apple.  I told Jess that is seemed very similar to the Honeycrisp and that I should do an “apple-off” to see which I like better.  I have never been so wrong.

Awww... it looks like its mom!

Sliced, but not diced.

On the left we have the SweeTango, and on the right we have a Honeycrisp from Small’s Fruit Farm (who actually were interested in the SweeTango when I told them about it). As you see, the apples look the same.  You can’t tell, but they also smell, feel and sound the same.  Yes, sound the same… if you tap it you get a nice “hollow thock” sound that you don’t get with all apples.  When it comes to taste, well…

I started with the Honeycrisp, and as expected it was sweet and crispy and just everything a perfect Honeycrisp should be.  Excellent.  I moved over and took a bite of the SweeTango… really nice.  It was very sweet and had a great tang to it.  Now I made my mistake: I put another slice of the Honeycrisp in my mouth.  Blech!  It was horrible… not that sweet, kind of sour.  Not good at all.  What in the world happened?  Well, have you ever tried two foods and the first is “okay” and the second is really good?  If you go back to the first it now tastes worse because you now have something to compare it to.  I think this is what happened here.  The SweeTango was so much better than the Honeycrisp that in a direct comparison the Honeycrisp lost all the awesome.

It was sad and I had to test my theory out on someone else.  I had Jess repeat the experiment and her beloved Honeycrisp suddenly tasted sour.  Luckily they taste fine when not being compared to the SweeTango.  I also tested the theory by grabbing a Gala apple and tasting it.  Tasted great… nice and sweet!  I then tried a bite of a Honeycrisp and as expected it tasted good.  I then went back to the Gala and…. bland.  Just didn’t taste as good in direct comparison. I assume that if you were to bake all these together in a crisp or a pie it would mesh well and you wouldn’t notice, but when tasted side-by-side, the sweeter and tangier apple destroys the competition.

So if you happen to live in the northern Mid-Western states (Minnesota, Wisconsin, etc) check out your Farmer’s Markets and you may find this little guy hanging out.  If you’re not in the area, you’ll have to wait until at *least* next year or longer to try what I think is the Honeycrisp killer.  I know it is now my favorite breed of apple for eating raw and I think when others try it they’ll be believers as well.  Soon Minnesota will have to change the State fruit from the Honeycrisp to the SweeTango.

So, what is your favorite apple cultivar?  Have you tried the SweeTango?  If so, did you like it as much as we did?

I have copied down the recipe for you to go ahead and give it a try (it’s not exactly the same as many things were “pinch of this” and “bunch of that”)… the book is filled with recipes like this (as in, things that you don’t instantly think of as “Jewish” food).  Unfortunately I only took a photo of the completed dish, but I don’t think you’d need to many pictures of it cooking to replicate it.  If you’re wondering, the garnish is a sprig of peppermint and a piece of Hyssop I got from my CSA (I used it with the mint as it has a slightly minty flavor).

This is possibly the most unique dish I've ever cooked.

Now, don’t be worried, I think the fruit works well in this dish, although I must be truthful and tell you that Jess thought it was horrible and never wants to see fruit in a savory dish again.  So, are you prepared to go on an adventure?

Ingredient Breakdown:

Spice Mix

• 4 Garlic Cloves (chopped)
• 1 Tbs Ginger root (chopped)
• 2 – 3 Red Jalepeno/Freson Peppers (seeded and chopped)
• 1 c Fresh Cilantro (chopped)
• 1 Yellow Onion (chopped)
• Juice of 1 Lemon
• 1/4 tsp Cayenne Pepper
• 1/2 tsp Green (or normal) Curry powder
• 1/2 tsp Cumin
• 1/2 tsp Cloves
• 1/2 tsp Coriander
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• Dash of Pepper

Everything Else

• 3 Chicken Breasts/Thighs (boneless, skinless, cubed bitesize)
• 2 Tbs Safflower/Canola/Vegetable Oil
• 2 Cinnamon Sticks
• 1 c Chicken Stock
• 1 c Coconut Milk
• 1.5 Tbs Sugar
• 1 Large (2 Small) Bananas (peeled and chopped)
• 1/4 Pineapple (peeled and chopped)
• 1/4 c Golden Raisins
• 1/4 c Currants or Raisins
• 2 – 3 Mint Sprigs
• Juice of 1/4 to 1/2 Lemon (to taste)
• Salt (to taste)
• Pepper (to taste)
• A few cups of prepared rice (I like brown basmati)

Instructions:

The dish is pretty simple… here we go:

1. Puree all of the ingredients listed under “spice mixture” together into a paste using a food processor. Set that aside for a minute.
2. Toss 2 Tbs of the above spice mix with the cubed chicken and set aside.
3. Heat the oil in a large pan/wok over medium heat.  Add all the remaining spice mix and heat for about 10 minutes (while stirring) until it thickens and turns brownish (don’t let it burn).
4. Add stock, coconut milk, sugar and two cinnamon sticks.  Turn the heat up until the mixture comes to a boil.  Stir and reduce the heat until it is at a slow simmer.  Cook for 10 more minutes.
5. Stir in your chicken mixture.  Cook this for about 2 – 3 minutes (or until the chicken is opaque and cooked through).
6. Stir in all the fruit into the curry and cook for another 1 – 2 minutes.
7. Stir in the mint and extra lemon (if needed, taste, taste, taste).  Add salt and more spices if needed.
8. Serve immediately over rice and enjoy.

It is a very unique dish with a very interesting flavor.  Give it a shot if you feel experimental… can’t hurt!