I totally have a crush on the Buford Highway Farmers Market! I super duper heart this place. It's like a giant cultural grocery store! Every Sunday, I wander the aisles trying to figure out what in the hell I am looking at or why the tiny Asian woman next to me needs a 55 gallon drum of dried up little fish babies. Cray cray. So I am on a mission....find a strange item in this store and cook something with it. As I look around, there are numerous things I could grab...I mean, half of the stuff in this store is in a language I don't understand. So I have decided to grab the ugliest thing I can find....
Jack pot...or fruit?
Okay, if you have never seen one of these before then you probably had the same reaction as I did. Why are they selling rotten watermelons? This is a jack fruit....well a dissected jack fruit. It's totally foul looking and I'm totally buying one.
Side note....do not get this confused with a Dorian fruit seen below
Apparently, when this guy is cut open, it smells like rotting flesh. Okay, let's talk about this for a second. First of all, this "fruit" looks like an ancient war weapon....or a purse that Lady Ga Ga would carry down the red carpet. I mean...why would Baby Jesus make such a thing? This is probably what watermelons dress up as for Halloween. You know if this was the fruit that Eve was tempted with, then I think we would all still be butt naked running through the jungle. If this thing WAS the forbidden fruit and she still took a bite of it.....then bitch had it comin'!
So getting back to the task at hand...the jack fruit...what in the hell am I gonna cook with this.
There she is...just starring at me
I mean... this is a face only a mother could love
And a butt that no one could love. I think I would rather eat a pine cone than this beast. Funny thing is, it smells soooo good. You would think this thing would smell like a fart. But it kind of smells like cucumber melon lotion....NOT that I have ever used that lotion...I'm just sayin' that it smells like when you walk past a Bath and Body Works at the mall....don't jump to conclusions! Rude! The bad part is....it doesn't taste like it smells. It kind of tastes like a sour banana. So i have decided to cut it up while I think of what to do with it.
First I cut off this nasty football skin and then I dice it.
Okay...it doesn't look so bad. It kind of looks like an artichoke...and I"arta choke"the girl who sold it to me...that was corny but I stand by it. So while I am fighting with the monster that I just purchased I remembered something. I used to live next door to a family from South Africa and they would make this curry dish that we would top with almonds and fresh banana and it was sooooo good. So in lies my decision...curry it is. Now since the jack fruit hails from Southeast Asia, I'm gonna have to find a way to Asianize this dish. The curry I learned to make from my neighbors was South African, so a few changes are in order.
Here is the recipe.
Joshua's Jack Pot Curry
Ingredients:
1 1/2 lbs of top round steak (or meat of your choice), cubed
2 yellow onions, diced
1 cup diced jack fruit
2 potatoes, diced
1 sweet pepper. diced
1 small turnip, diced
3 medium tomatoes, diced
2 T. curry
1 t. turmeric
1 t. white pepper
1 t. Chinese 5 spice
2 stock cubes (beef or chicken)
2 cups hot water
Side note: If you like a spicy curry, add a hot pepper as well. Also, you don't have to use the turnip, I just wanted to cut the sweetness of the dish. If you don't have a turnip, you can use another potato.
Oh and Btw...this is the curry I am using. It's Viet Namese...super good
Okay now everything is chopped and ready to go
The first thing we have to do is brown the meat.
In a dutch oven, heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil on high.
Then add steak pieces one at a time.
Brown the steak on one side for a couple minutes and then turn each piece over to brown on the other side.
The reason we are doing this is because we need to get some color on the meat first. Most of this curry is cooked in liquid. And when beef is cooked in liquid it turns grey. No ma'am! I don't want to eat grey food although Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast thinks it's delicious...Ha ha....google it:)
Now remove the beef and set aside.
Ooooooo, Yes I did!
Now we need to fry the veggies.
In the same pot, add the veggies, jack fruit, and spices.
Cook these for a few minutes stirring constantly. Then add the water and stock cubes and re-add the meat.
Bring this to a boil and then reduce heat.
Cover the curry and simmer for 2 to 2 1/2 hours stirring every 20 minutes or so.
Half way!!! I'm so excited. CLOSE THE LID!!
Alrighty...here she is peeps!....
Yummmm!!! It smells so good you have no idea! I wanna pour this in my under ware! No seriously...it smells that good.
Now that Joshua's Jack Pot Curry is all done, I shall plate it up with some yellow rice.
Yes Ma'am!!! God I hope this junk tastes good. Let's see what Ricky thinks.....
Oh God he's tasting is right now....I'm so nervous. Drum roll please.....
It's a thumbs up! Hooray! Take that Baby Jesus and your ugly fruit!
So in conclusion....this dish will totally rock your face off! And the Jack fruit is not so scary after all. So if you decide to make this dish (as you should...cause it will change your life), then you can use the leftover fruit to scare away animals from your yard:)
That's all for now...more to come....
Hold please....
