Breadfruit can be cooked and eaten at all stages of development. It is typically consumed when mature, but still firm, and is a delicious substitute for any starchy root crop, vegetable, pasta, potato, or rice. Mature breadfruit can be boiled, steamed, or baked and replace potatoes in many recipes. Small, immature fruit can be boiled, pickled or marinated, and have a flavor similar to that of artichoke hearts. Sliced breadfruit can be fried to make chips or 'French fries' or candied. Ripe fruit are creamy and sweet and can be eaten raw or used to make pies, cakes, and other desserts. Breadfruit made into a cereal or pureed ripe fruit is good food for babies. The nutritious seeds resemble chestnuts in flavor and texture. They are boiled, roasted, or ground into meal. Immature fruit can be sliced, seeds and all, and cooked as a vegetable. Male flowers are candied and eaten as a sweet. | |||
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It is important to select breadfruit at the right stage of maturity. To use breadfruit as a potato substitute select a fully mature, firm fruit. The skin should be greenish-yellow with slight brown cracking or crusting around the individual sections and a few splotches of dried sap. The flesh is firm and creamy white or pale yellow in color. A ripe breadfruit has a yellow-green to yellow-brown peel and is soft to the touch with a sweet, aromatic smell. The ripe flesh is creamy white or yellow color. Fruit that are not quite mature are bright green and bleed a sticky white sap when cut or bruised. The flesh will still be pale green 1 to 5 mm beneath the skin. |
 Breadfruit can be eaten during all stages of development. |
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When properly prepared, breadfruit is a delicious food. Think of a firm, mature breadfruit as a potato. It can be baked, steamed, boiled, microwaved, grilled, or barbecued and more. A simple step makes handling and cooking breadfruit an easy task. After harvesting the fruit, twist off the stem and turn the fruit upside down to allow any sticky latex to drain out. Do this the day before or a few hours prior to cooking the fruit. The easiest way to steam or boil breadfruit is to cut it into in quarters, remove and dispose of the hard central core, and place the pieces skin side down in a pan with some water. The edible skin is easily removed once the fruit is cooked. If you prefer, peel the fruit then rinse in cool water. Pat dry, cut into quarters, and remove and dispose of the core. Cook as quarters or cut into chunks depending on the dish. See Recipes for ideas on how to cook breadfruit. |
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Steam/BoilPlace the pieces of fruit in a steamer or in 3 to 5 cm of lightly salted water, do not completely immerse. Add salt, pepper, garlic or other seasonings as desired. Steam quarters for 10-20 minutes or chunks for 10 minutes or less, until tender and the fruit can be easily pierced with a fork. Length of cooking depends on the variety. The firmer and denser the flesh, the longer it will take to cook. Overcooking will make breadfruit mushy and waterlogged. Remove cooked fruit from the pan and prepare as desired. Cooked fruit can be refrigerated for several days or frozen in plastic bags for one to two months. |
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Breadfruit is well suited as a base for a range of consumer products because of its high starch content, pale color, and mild flavor. The wide range of corn, rice, and potato products available could be made with breadfruit. Development of breadfruit products is still limited. Chips are a popular item and available on a small scale in local markets in the Pacific and Caribbean Islands, the Seychelles, and Malaysia. Canned bredfruit chunks are produced in Jamaica and available in stores in the USA, Canada and Fiji. Boiled breadnut seeds are also canned in the Caribbean. Raw and cooked seeds can be ground into meal. Breadfruit can also be dehydrated, freeze-dried, or frozen. Dried breadfruit is ground into flour which can substitute a portion of wheat or other flours used in making bread and baked goods. One health advantage is that breadfruit is gluten free. Starch can be extracted from firm, mature fruit. The starch and flour are used to make breakfast foods, porridges, crackers, and snack foods. In Ghana, research is underway to develop nutritious infant food using breadfruit and breadnut. |
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