Breadfruit

Artocarpus altilis · Tropical fruit

40 pairings

Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) is the large, round, starchy fruit of a fast-growing tropical tree in the mulberry and jackfruit family. Picked mature but unripe, it is a staple carbohydrate across the Pacific, the Caribbean and the tropics — cooked like a potato by roasting, boiling, baking or frying, with a bland, bready, faintly sweet flesh that gives the fruit its name.

Picking a good onedrag

Mature and hard, the starch vegetableSlumped, split and winey

First give, going yellowIt softens within a few days off the tree as the starch turns to sugar. Still the savoury starch and still cooked; roast or fry it now, or let it run on sweet.Cook it soon

RindGreen turning greenish-yellow, the rind still tough

PressFirm still, the first faint give at the shoulders

Cut stalkStub dry and corky under a crust of browned latex

SmellA first faint sweetness coming up under the green

What to look for, from mature and hard, the starch vegetable to slumped, split and winey.

Preparing