Langsat
Lansium parasiticum · Tropical fruit
Top 10 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 blemishedStill goodBrown 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.
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 you get from one
60%
Edible part
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 temperature
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.
90%
Humidity
Covered, not sealed
Airflow