Ice-cream bean

Inga edulis · Tropical fruit

40 pairings

The ice-cream bean (Inga edulis) is the long, ribbed, green seed pod of a fast-growing Amazonian legume tree, prized not for its beans but for the sweet, snow-white, cotton-wool pulp that surrounds them. The fluffy aril tastes of vanilla and sugar — almost like a soft, melting sweet — and is eaten fresh straight from the pod, which can grow to a metre long.

Picking a good onedrag

Taut green pod, pulp snow-whiteLeathery pod, pulp grey and sour

A day or two on the stallPod bends a little before it snaps, pulp still white and fluffy. Eat it the day you buy it - a fresh pod keeps only three or four days. Pulp only; seeds go in the bin.Everyday best

PodGreen going olive, ribs still filled out

HeftStill weighty, the seed bumps just showing

Stalk endStub drying back, scar pale and closed

Snapped openBends then snaps, pulp white, vanilla-sweet

What to look for, from taut green pod, pulp snow-white to leathery pod, pulp grey and sour.

What one gives you

22%

Usable yield

About 95 g of white aril from a 425 g pod - the rest is pod wall and seed. Falcao and Clement (2000), reported in Lojka et al. 2010, measured Amazonian pods at 250-600 g with only 22 +/- 4% edible pulp; 425 g is that range's midpoint, not a reported mean. The fruit is in neither USDA SR Legacy nor FoodData Central, so there is no refuse code to check it against.

425 g

Typical weight

one specimen

Preparing