Champedak

Artocarpus integer · Fruit

40 pairings

Champedak (Artocarpus integer) is a Southeast Asian tropical fruit and a close cousin of the jackfruit, prized for its soft, custardy, deep-golden arils and an intense, sweet, almost durian-like perfume. Smaller and far more aromatic than jackfruit, it is eaten fresh straight from the rind and, most famously, dipped in batter and deep-fried whole as the beloved street snack champedak goreng across Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. It is a distinct species from both jackfruit and breadfruit, set apart by its heady fragrance, slippery-tender flesh and thin, smooth, latex-heavy rind.

Picking a good onedrag

Gold, heavy, richly perfumedSlack, weeping, fermenting

Soft and loudPerfume at its heaviest, arils at their most custardy — the day for champedak goreng. Two or three days at room temperature is all it has. Seeds boiled or roasted, never raw.Eat today

RindDeep brown-gold, the rind thin and taut over the flesh

Tap and squeezeHollow still, giving all over but springing back

SmellLoud and heady, carrying right across the stall

Stalk endStub dry and corky, a little crusted latex left

What to look for, from gold, heavy, richly perfumed to slack, weeping, fermenting.

What one gives you

30%

Usable yield

Roughly a third of the whole fruit comes off as arils — but treat that as approximate: it is borrowed by analogy with jackfruit, whose pulp Morton puts at 25-40% of fruit weight, because no measured champedak figure exists. The thin latex-heavy rind, the clingy core and the big flat seeds are the rest, and those seeds are food only once boiled or roasted.

Preparing