Recycling Chempedak Seeds as Food

Chempedak is a type of pungent Southeast Asian fruit with soft, bright yellow flesh in a soft but spiny green shell. I'd eaten it before, and quite like it. But I never knew that its seeds could be eaten!

Once you have eaten the soft yellow flesh, you can boil the seeds in water for 20 minutes, and they'll be ready to be eaten as in the picture above.

You'll need to peel off the outer white layer, and the second brown layer, to reveal a pale yellow and chestnut-like flesh. In fact, it was almost exactly like chestnut - just less sweet and with a milder flavour. Even the texture was smooth and slightly powdery, like a roasted chestnut!

I suppose you could use them as a kind of mashed potato or pie filling, the way sweet potatoes and chestnuts are used. I doubt they have much industrial use though, since so few people seem to know about them. Still, it was an interesting discovery. ^_^

Also, if you don't live in Southeast Asia, the chempedak fruit, let along its boiled seeds, might be highly unusual to you. If you found this interesting, you can explore more exceptionally unusual food and drinks here!