Mithache Ghare | Kolache Ghare | Tender Jackfruit in Brine (Salted Raw Jackfruit)

Mithache Ghare | Kolache Ghare | Tender Jackfruit in Brine (Salted Raw Jackfruit)


Ingredients:

• 1 medium sized raw jackfruit
• 2-3 cups rock salt/sea salt

Other Things You Need:

• sickle (koithi) or large sharp knife
• plenty of old newspapers & clean, old kitchen towels (to be discarded after use)
• coconut or any other oil (to grease the palms)
• Large steel/plastic bowls/pans/vessels to hold the jackfruit and the discarded pith & skin.
• large ceramic (buyaon/bharani) or glass jar

Method:
Cleaning the jackfruit
1. Spread out newspapers on the floor to help avoid a sticky mess – jackfruit sap is a pain to clean up.
2. Apply oil generously on the blade of the sickle or knife – let the oil not touch the handle or else it will slip. The application of oil will help clean up of the tools used to cut the fruit.
3. Cut open the jackfruit right in the centre and quickly wipe off the fresh white sticky sap that oozes using slightly oiled kitchen tissue or a old clean kitchen towel. Next, cut the halves into two again and maybe smaller halves if the jackfruit is too large. These chunks are called as ‘shed’ in Konkani.
4. Carefully slice off the core from each chunk. The core is the hard white portion at the top of each chunk.
5. Pluck out the jackfruit pods carefully – you will need to remove the white thin strips of pith (membranes) that surround each pale yellow pod. Discard the white pith.
6. Each yellow pod of fruit will have a seed within called as ‘bikan’ in Konkani. Carefully open the pods and separate the seeds. Retain the seeds for later use.
7. When all the jackfruit pods have been removed discard the skin along with the pith.

Preserving the jackfruit
1. Slit the deseeded jackfruit pods into thick strips. Toss them into the ceramic jar and add the salt – enough to coat all the strips well with salt. There is no need to add water. Cover the jar and keep in a clean, dry place of your kitchen.
2. In a couple of days, the entire volume of jackfruit strips would have reduced and the excess water from the jackfruit oozes out causing the strips the be covered in its own salt water or brine as it is called.
3. You can transfer the strips in smaller glass bottles and refrigerate if you wish. Make sure that the bottles have enough brine in them – enough to cover all jackfruit strips completely.

To Use:
Whenever you wish to cook the jackfruit pieces remove the required quantity and soak them in fresh water for a few hours. After a couple of changes of water it is ready to cook.
See my upcoming recipes for the same.

Notes:
The process of cleaning a ripe jackfruit is the same. If you wish to freeze the jackfruit pods make sure the seeds are removed before storing the fruit in ziplock/airtight freezer safe containers.