Langsat

Lansium parasiticum · Tropical fruit

40 pairings

The langsat (Lansium parasiticum), known across Southeast Asia as lanzones, duku or longkong, is a small round-to-ovoid tropical fruit borne in grape-like clusters on a tall mahogany-family tree. Inside a thin pale-yellow leathery skin sit five translucent, glassy segments — sweet, lightly tart and faintly grape-like — surrounding one or more bitter green seeds.

Picking a good onedrag

Deep yellow, taut, glassy insideBrowned, shedding, fermenting

Dulling and blemishedBrown freckling is normal on ripe fruit, not spoilage. But it is non-climacteric and will not ripen at home, so a pale, sour cluster stays sour — buy on smell and give.Still good

Skin colourYellow going dull, the blemishes spreading tan

The squeezeA little give, still full under the leathery skin

Stalks and clusterStalks tanning and drying, one or two loose in the bag

Smell at the clusterMild and sweet, and only right at the nose

What to look for, from deep yellow, taut, glassy inside to browned, shedding, fermenting.

What one gives you

60%

Usable yield

About 60 g of translucent segments in 100 g of fruit · the thin leathery skin and the bitter green seeds are the other 40%

Keeping ittap a band

Handbook 66 puts the best store at 18 C and records skin browning at 15 C. A fridge is not a cool store for this one: it pits and scalds the peel instead of keeping it.

Humidity

90%

The 18 C figure comes with 90% RH, and dry air shrivels the thin skin. Do not mist it, though — Handbook 66 wants the fruit picked and packed dry, or it moulds.

Airflow

Covered, not sealed

A plastic bag cuts weight loss but browns the skin faster, and the carbon dioxide that builds up in a sealed one makes that worse. Cover the cluster loosely.

Low output, no reported response

Handbook 66 records low output, 2-6 uL/kg internally, and no reported response to ethylene treatment, though it may hurry senescence. Bananas beside it will not sweeten it.

Preparing