Preserved Langka / Jackfruit

Most langka ripens between May and August. There is an abundance of it in the markets right about now. It spoils quickly so prices drop dramatically when there is a lot on offer. langka1I don’t like to buy just a portion of a fruit (actually it is called a syncarp) because I am worried about freshness, hygiene, etc. So I look for small ripe langka instead. Even the modest sized specimens yield a ton of fruit so you have to be prepared to use it in many different ways. To preserve fruit at its peak for future use, I just remove the seeds, place the fruit in a large sterilized jam or preserves jar and pour boiling hot sugar water (2 parts sugar for every part water) into the jar until the fruit is fully covered. Allow this to cool and then refrigerate. It should last several weeks and after soaking for a few days it has a nice fresh texture to it, sweet and flavorful. Others stew the langka in the sugar water to soften it but I like the freshness of uncooked langka more.

What to do with this sugared langka? The best use is in a home langka2made halo-halo (or use together with other store bought ingredients). It also is terrific with saba bananas in turon. I imagine it would be good with almond jelly (in lieu of lychees) if taken in small doses. If you like langka a lot, I find that it makes good snacking straight out of the bottle. The “rags” you get when you peel the syncarp and remove the pulp surrounding the seeds is apparently rich in pectin, the stuff that makes jelly when paired with sugars and fruit. The seeds themselves are rich in starch and can be made into flour. Unripe langka is often cooked with coconut milk and served as a vegetable… but I like my langka ripe and pungent!

Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest

11 Responses

  1. “What to do with the bounty?”
    Fresh jackfruit can be frozen for several months. At home, I divide the jackfruit in several ziploc bags, then enclosed these in a bigger plastic bag and parked in the freezer. Whenever my husband wants to eat nangka, he takes out one ziploc bag, reheat for a few seconds in the microwave. The nangka retains its fresh taste.

    BTW, in Thailand, they have made jackfruit into a dried, light, crunchy delicacy- masarap na nangka chips!

  2. We also make dried langka here in Negros, but not the crunchy variety although it’s delicious.
    Magnolia used to have a nangka-flavored popsicle and I enjoyed that more than the choco and orange flavors. I wonder why they don’t do it anymore.

  3. We get our langka from Pampanga. My lol has small trees but their fruits are way big, sometimes almost reaching to the ground. The seeds can be eaten. Just dry ’em up, roast them and that’s it. Just remove the skin of the seed and it’s eaten just like any other nut. Kinda tastes like kastanyas though you don’t get the “drunk” feeling from langka seeds.

  4. Oh gosh, bugsybee, I remember those langka popsicles and I liked them too. What a nostalgia trip. Well, beside Magnolia selling out to nestle then having a five year non-compete clause that has now expired so magnolia is back…I am not sure why they dropped it. Seems there are tons of langka lovers out there!

  5. I agree Marketman! A lot of people love langka. We had a whole fruit a week ago. I planned to cook it into postre, for tart fillings. An hour or so later, I noticed most of it was eaten. ;-)

  6. I’m a bit surprised about the praises heeped on langka despite some critics out there. The critics include the smell asociated with it. But all the same Langka is a great fruit. In my country Uganda people in the rural settings are utilising it to rid themselves of poverty.We want to know more about the possibility of preservation apart from the mentioned. We also want to know the other products associated with langka what about foreign markets and commercial farming?

  7. that is quite good my qn do you use the seeds for flour and what kinds of produts do you make out of those seeds?

  8. Hi people,mine is to get technical help as to how i can preserve ripe jack fruit pulps on supermarket display shelves for atleast one month i find it very hard to maintain them i cut,pack and suply.David Uganda

BLOG CATEGORIES

MARKETMAN ON INSTAGRAM

Subscribe To Updates

No spam, only notifications about new blog posts.