Hard work…

This is what we call buah tupang in Melanau or buah pulo in Malay…

I did blog about eating the very nice mature seeds here and a long time ago, I had a post on how to cook it, masak sayur rebus (boiled vegetables)-style.

Last Friday, we had to drive all the way to my girl’s school in the jungle to fetch her and bring her home for the weekend and on the way, we stopped by the Selangau market. I saw a lot of the young fruit but my missus said that she did not want to buy – “Ching chay kang (a lot of work)!” she said. Knowing how my girl loves eating this, I simply had to grab one and believe it or not, it was just RM2.00 each, RM5 for 3 smaller ones.

Yes, it was quite a lot of hard work as I had to shave off the outer skin and get rid of the “thorns” and I had to put my hand, the one holding it, in a plastic bag to avoid any contact with the sap…

You may end up getting it on the knife and it would be hard to get it off but an easy way would be to use cooking oil…

…and you would be able to scrub it off quite easily after that.

The lady at the market swore it was very young but looking at the shades of brown in the seeds…

…I could tell it wasn’t really that young so the shell might be a bit hard. Of course, one could peel it off while eating but that would take away a bit of the enjoyment of the dish. That was why I took out all the seeds…

…and got rid of all the shell…

There may be a thin brown-coloured skin inside but like the ones in groundnuts, that need not be removed.

The rest of the skin…

…is edible too but not the core.

Once done, I got the ingredients ready…

– some shallots, garlic and ginger, chili, a bit of kunyit (turmeric) and lengkuas (galangal) and pounded them till really fine…

…along with two stalks of serai (lemon grass), bruised at the ends and I also pounded some udang kering (dried prawns) with a bit of belacan (dried prawn paste) added.

First, I fried the pounded ingredients and the serai in a bit of oil before adding the seeds and a bit of water and I let it boil for a while to cook the seeds. Next, the skin went in and finally, I added santan (coconut milk) and a bit of serbuk kunyit (turmeric powder) for a nicer yellow colour and salt according to taste…

…and it was done!

It was nice…

…but no, it was not like what my mum used to dish out – hers was very much nicer. I think I went a bit overboard with the ingredients – the kunyit, lengkuas and serai so it was a little too strong on the taste of those but yes, it was good enough…

…for my girl to want to bring some back to her school in the jungle to enjoy on one of the days in the week ahead…but she only wanted the seeds, not the skin. Still, that sure was a consolation for all my effort.