Durian
Durio zibethinus · Tropical fruit
Top 10 pairings
The durian is the large, spike-armoured fruit of Durio zibethinus, a tall tropical tree of Southeast Asia, celebrated across the region as the "king of fruits." Its woody, thorn-covered husk splits along seams into segments holding lobes of rich, pale-yellow, custard-like flesh — at once intensely sweet, savoury and faintly bitter — whose powerful sulfurous aroma, variously read as onion, rotten egg, almond and warm caramel, is so pervasive that the fruit is banned from many hotels, aircraft and metro systems.
Picking a good onedrag
Hard, a solid knock, little scentSplit, weeping, sour and boozy
Just ripePeak eatingEat the aril straight out of the husk, or into sticky rice and ice cream. Durian blunts the enzyme that clears alcohol, so skip the drink alongside.
HuskSpine tips browning, grooves widening, seams shut
The tapA deep hollow knock
StemSap at the cut stalk clear, not sticky
SmellSweet custard under the onion and garlic
Reading a just ripe one. Move the slider and the rest of this page — nutrition, pairings — updates with it.
What you get from one
30%
Edible part
About 600 g of aril from a 2 kg fruit - husk and seeds are the rest. AH-66 puts edible pulp at 20-35%, so it swings hard by cultivar.
2000 g
Weight each
each one