Do you know that Jack-fruit (Kathal – কাঁঠাল) is the national fruit of Bangladesh? To the westerners, it is relatively new fruit, compared to mango. Even though it is a fruit and eaten when ripe, we Bangladeshis cook green jack-fruit as a vegetable? And surprisingly it’s texture is just like meat, so often it’s called Plant Mutton (Gach Patha– গাছ পাঁঠা). Nowadays, green jack-fruit is hype among westerners and can be seen in many new recipes. However, it has been in Bangladeshi culture for hundreds of years and today I am going to share one of those recipes.

It’s sort of impossible to get a whole jack-fruit here, so I used a canned one. For this recipe, I have used all the spices that are used in cooking meat, like onion, ginger-garlic paste, coriander,cumin,turmeric, gorom moshla powder, whole cinnamon, cardamom and bay leaves. I have used white raps oil, but you can use any flavorless vegetable oil.

I heated 2 table spoons of oil and added cinnamon stick, cardamom and bay leaves, let those release aroma for half a minute.

I added finely chopped onions and also added some salt, so onions get softer quickly.

Few minutes later when onions got golden brown, I added ginger and garlic paste and also added all the dry ingredients. I put some water to avoid splatter of all the spices. Water will help in cooking spices and reduce burning from heat too.

While all the spices getting cooked, I took liberty to add some tomato paste, but it is completely optional. Tomato paste brings a nice colour to the curry, although I do not like the sour taste of tomato, so I added just a tea spoon.

As you can see in the picture, oil started getting separated from the spices, so it means that spices are cooked. This step, I added the green jack-fruit, which I drained beforehand.

If the jack-fruits were fresh, I mean not from can, I would fry them into oil before adding to spices. But I can’t do it with these canned ones, as they are already soft. So I let the pieces soaked and fried in spices for a few minutes on both sides. We call this step in Bangla as Koshano (কষানো) or Bhuna (ভুনা).

After doing lots of koshano, I mashed the pieces, so all parts get equally cooked with spices. Note that I have not added a lots of water because jack-fruits were soft. But you can always add water to enhance cooking.

This is how the curry looks like. I dried out all the sauces, so that the consistency looks and tastes like beef. You can eat this either with rice or ruti.

Recipe: 2 Serving Prepping time: 5 minutes, Cooking time: 30 minutes

Ingredients: 250g of canned Jack-fruit Spice and Condiments: 20ml Vegetable Oil 2 medium white onion 1tbs fine Salt 1tsp Turmeric powder 1tsp Coriander powder 1tsp Cumin powder 1tsp Chili powder 1tsp Gorom Moshla 1tsp Ginger Paste (or Ginger powder) 1tsp Garlic Paste (or Garlic powder) 2-3 Chili (optional) 1 stick of Cinnamon 2-3 Cardamom 1 Bay leaf

Instruction: 1. Heat 2 table spoon of oil in a wok or skillet. Add cinnamon, cardamom and bay leaf and let them cook until they start bubbling. 2. Add sliced onions and fry until golden brown. Add salt to soften onion. 3. When onions are golden brown, add ginger garlic paste and all the dry spices. Add splash of water to avoid burning. Cook all the spices until the oil starts to separate and float. 4. Add drained jack-fruits and give them a very good stir until they are mixed well with cooked spice. Let them cook for 5 minutes each side. 5. When fried with spices, mash the jack-fruits with spatual. Continue to cook, Add water if needed. 8. Simmer curry til the gravy is in desired consistency. Garnish your curry with coriander leaves or ground cumin powder as per desire. and Enjoy with rice or bread!