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Mistah Christian! A bounty of breadfruit

Breadfruit

Breadfruit! We were so taken by their mere presence in the Dedham Stop & Shop yesterday, we quickly procured one. And never mind we had no idea whatsoever what to do with it. After all, isn't that what the Internet's for?

First, of course, is the obvious: It has nothing to do with bread. And truth be told, it's not much of a fruit, even if it does look like an armored cantaloupe - it's more of a starchy thing, something you could use as a replacement for potatoes.

Oh, hey, it's Sunday and we usually have some home fries with breakfast. I'll just swap in some breadfruit instead.

This page provided the basic cooking technique: Stick it in the microwave for 15 or so minutes, slice off the rind, then dig in.

That page has one incredibly useful tip: Never let a breadfruit touch your counter after it's been cooked. Seems breadfruits excrete this sticky latexy stuff that the author says only lighter fluid can remove from counters (got some on my hands - fortunately, soap and water worked fine).

After the microwave dinged, I took it out and cut it in half (with a bread knife, natch, seemed only fitting). Sliced off the rind, cut out the pit and was left with this mass of potato-ish looking bits that had a subtle breadfruity smell (never smelled anything quite like it before) and which felt a bit more rubbery than potatoes.

Sliced open breadfruit

Sliced 'em up into cubes, threw 'em into a frying pan on low with some oil, ground pepper, onion powder and salt, mixed the whole thing up every so often, and in 15 minutes or so, I had something that looked remarkably like a pile of home fries.

And they tasted remarkably like them, too, except they did have that subtle breadfruity taste, almost, but not quite like sweet potatoes.

It was an interesting experiment, but it's a lot easier and cheaper to just use some pre-cubed frozen home-fries potatoes (even cheaper, but not as easy: using actual potatoes), so having eaten one, we're probably done.

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Comments

" pre-cubed frozen home-fries potatoes" No way , Jose . PEI 's ! With onions , in bacon fat !

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My wife - from Trinidad - says to try it au gratin with cheddar, fried as chips, or plain ol' mashed; also, look up a recipe for "oil down" with beef or curried fish. She's on her way to buy a bunch, so I'll be eating Trini cuisine for the rest of the week!

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It's a good thing I don't know your address!

Love Trini food!

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