I love tropical fruits: pineapple, mango, jack fruit and even the stinky durian 😀

Also there are some fruits that are only exist in Southeast Asia, such as
mangosteen

“salak” (dunno the English name –snake fruit?),

marquisa (passion fruit)

(source)

jambu air (wax apples, water apple(?), rose apple(?))

duku (pron: dookoo)

rambutan

(source)
Aaah I miss all those exotic tropical fruits! Ever since I came to the US more than a decade ago, I have NOT gone BACK to my home country – (pretty bad huh?). However, part of me is kinda “scared” of going back, mainly “scared” of the culture shock. Ok enough rambling, sorry about that.

So since today’s topic is on tropical fruits, I’d like to share my way of cutting a pineapple. I was a bit hesitant to post this because c’mon, everyone knows how to cut a pineapple, right? Or better yet, buy pre cut or canned and skip the hassle of wrestling with the pineapple.

I personally like fresh cut pineapple than the store bought pre-cut, let alone canned one. Fresh pineapple has that juicy, tangy and fresh taste. Unfortunately, fresh cut pineapple doesn’t store well in a long period time.Kinda a bummer that I have to control my pineapple intake because eating too much pineapple irritates my stomach and my tongue.

Ok let’s get down to the business, shall we?
When picking a pineapple, look for the ones that’s still kind of green with a bit of orange/yellow color at the lower part. One trick my mom told me is to look at the “eyes” – the bigger they are, the better 🙂

Also check there’s no bruise/soft spots as a result from being dropped/smashed. Nice and firm with some fragrant is the best.

Cut the top part first – don’t cut way too deep or you’ll waste a lot of it.
Begin to cut the sides – going around until you cut out all the skins.

Now here’s the fun part. Most people just keep cutting the sides they got all the “eyes”. But that wastes a lot of the pineapple flesh and I’m a person who hates wasting food.
My mom taught me how to cut out pineapple eyes without sacrificing too much of its flesh 🙂 See the pic below

First find the perfect diagonal alignment between the upper and lower part of the eye then cut into it – don’t cut it too deep. Do the same thing on the opposite side. You’ll end up cutting out 2 eyes in wedges 🙂

Keep doing it until all the eyes are removed – and you got this nicely shaped pineapple 😀
Notice I didn’t bother to clean the top and the bottom just yet. It’s only small bits and I try to save as much of the flesh as possible.

So divide the pineapple lengthwise as shown then cut off the top and bottom part.

There you go, Now just slice it lengthwise – remove the core (when I was a kid I love eating the cores..so crunchy!)

Cut into bite size and store them in tupperwares.

Freshly cut pineapple are ready to be eaten anytime!

Goes well with my last stash of strawberries for today’s afternoon snacks. YUM!

I’m sorry if my instructions are a bit confusing and grammatically incorrect. I admit I am not the best writer, let alone writing in English which is my second language.

Have you tried any of the exotic tropical fruits that I mentioned above?

Aah finally tomorrow’s Friday and weekend is getting closer! Yay!

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