What is it…

Actually, I blogged about it a long time ago, way back in 2008…but when I shared a photograph of it on Facebook…

…the other day, so many people said they had never seen it before while some have but they have never tried eating it and they do not know how to go about preparing it so they too do not have the slightest inkling as to what this fruit actually tastes like.

Well, this is called terbulus in Melanau and in Malay, it is known as buah engkalak…and like the dabai (local black olives), it is only found growing in Central Sarawak except that today, due to its popularity and huge demand, they have planted the dabai trees elsewhere in the state so it is no longer exclusive to this part of the state any longer.

The terbulus is green when it is not ripe and it turns into this nice shade of pink when it does and that would be the indication that it is ready to be eaten. For one thing, it is not easy to harvest this very delicate fruit that grows on very big and tall trees like the dabai or the durian. You cannot just take a long bamboo pole and poke it off the tree – that would damage it completely and render it unsuitable for consumption…and you cannot wait till it is ripe as it will be too soft and there is no way that the fruit will not be damaged.

We had a tree in the compound of our old house where I grew up and everytime, my mum would get this guy from the kampung (village) who would climb up the tree and cut off the branches (while the fruits were still green and unripe). Now, he could not just let the branches fall to the ground like that, no way – what he did was he tied a rope to the branch and let it down slowly. Then he and my mum would cut the fruits off the branch with a bit of the stalks still intact like what you can see in the above photograph, handling each and everyone of them with the uttermost care. Those would be kept in the house till they changed colour which would mean that they were ripe and ready to be eaten.

Now to prepare the fruits for eating, you will have to wash/rinse the fruits and remove the stalks and put the fruits in a stainless steel pot or saucepan…

…and sprinkle some salt over them and closing the pot/saucepan, you will have to shake it to toss the fruits inside to mix them well with the salt…

Cover the pot/saucepan and leave it for around 15-30 minutes to let the fruits “cook”. You will have to toss the pot/saucepan at regular intervals, hitting the fruits inside against the sides but you must not do it too hard especially if the fruits are very ripe as the seeds and the white part inside would all come out and you will end up with a miserable mess. As I have said earlier, this fruit is very delicate!

Some people, my mum included, would eat it with sagu (toasted sago pellets) but I am not too fond of that so I would just eat it with rice. If the fruit is not really ripe, it is slightly green inside and not as creamy…

My missus prefers it that way – she thinks it is like avocado but I would like it very ripe when it has turned all white and creamy on the inside…

…like ice cream. In the past, I would not eat the skin but I do now – it is edible and they insist that it is very good roughage so it is good for one’s bowel movement.

Well, actually it is good that not many know about the fruit or how to prepare and eat it because demand would be low and that would keep the prices down. They are selling at RM5.00 a kilo at Selangau bazaar and they sell them by the basket at the market here – RM5 per basket. As you can see, the prices are not as outrageous as those of the dabai and the durian which are not really affordable these days and I certainly hope that they will stay that way so that I can still afford to enjoy the fruit whenever it is in season.

Now, if I may digress from the fruit for a while, I just want to share a little bit here about these canned oysters…

…that we use for cooking the Foochow-style tofu soup or what we call tauhu tear. I have yet to do that but hopefully, I will get down to doing it someday so I can blog about how to go about doing that then but in the meantime, I just want to mention that I used it to fry some bihun for breakfast the other morning…

…but although it was quite nice, it did not come anywhere near the bihun fried using the canned clams in soy sauce…

Somehow, it lacked the taste and the fragrance…

…so now I know – when I need to fry some more, I’d definitely stick to the clams and not use the oysters.

Hey, it’s Monday today…and the long end-of-year school holidays have started! Any plans to go anywhere? Sibu, perhaps?