The Exotic Rambutan
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I am a huge lychee fan… and I mean huge. So I’ve been on a mission to try the lychee’s siter fruits – the longan and the rambutan. All three fruit come from various parts of Asian and are used in Asian cuisine.
I scored some longanback in October (in China Town, Boston) and while I enjoyed them, I still preferred the taste of lychee. So when I was at Russo’s Marketlast week and spied a pile of Rambutan (out of season, so $5.98/lb), I decided to grab three — one for the boy, one for the Husband and one for moi.
According to Wikipedia, the word rambutan translates to the word hairy, in both Indonesian and Malay… and that’s because… well… the rambutan looks pretty damn hairy!
Though they look sort of prickly, the spines on the rambutan are actually quite soft. The skin is leathery, just like the lychee and longan. I find that lychee skin is the thinnest and is easily peeled away by picking with your fingernail. The longan is has the next thickest skin, and if I remember correctly, we were able to “start” the peeling of them with our finers as well. The rambutan however, has much thicker skin… so it took a sharp knife to crack the skin and to get it to peel away.
The texture of the fruit is the same as the lychee and logan and the pit is similar in that it takes up a good part of the fruit. The flesh is juicy, sweet and succulent. I have decided that the rambutan is my favorite of these three fruits… it’s hard to explain why, as their flavors are subtly different, yet similar. The rambutan seems to be fresher, with less of a rotting fruit undertone. The fruit is also larger, so you get more bang for your buck.
The Husband and 4-yo both agreed that they were delicious and I think we all were wishing there were more. Perhaps when they come into season I’ll buy a bunch. They would make a great martini, but to be honest… would prefer to eat them raw — right out of the shell.
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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I agree, the rambutan is my favorite among these sister fruits. I think it’s a bit less sticky sweet compared to the lychee and longan. I really miss being able to get them fresh, not like here in the US. We used to drive up to Canada just to eat tropical fruits from their Chinatown (I live about 2hrs under the border). Recently, I’ve been seeing rambutans in Seattle, but not fresh ones. Since I grew up with these fruits fresh, I can’t bring myself to pay $5/lb for rambutans that have already turned brown with their spikes all dried up. Oy, I need to go back to Vietnam, where fresh rambutans are about $0.50/kilo. If you get a chance, really look for fresh rambutans that look like these: http://www.cforums.lv/tmceimages/pics/fruits/rambutan.jpg Trust me, there is a huge difference in taste. They are much more delicate and fresh tasting compared to the less fresh fruits
irisine82,
I will have to look for fresh ones! I was told they are out of season, which is probably why the ones I found at my local (and amazing market) Russo’s are brown. We haev a Super 88 market here too… which is a large Asian grocery store. I’ll have to check there as well. Thanks for the tip!
Tammy
FYI, you can open any of these fruit by squeezing/pinching one end and they’ll split open. Makes for faster consumption. Yum =)
[...] Red rambutans… [...]
we first discovered rambutans while on kauai where they grow fresh and incredibly delicious. thankfully our two-year-old devoured them, couldn’t stop. which strikes me as an awesome coincidence that when I googled ‘rambutan seattle’ so we may find them here somehow, this site was the top of the page with the date of February 25, 2009, the day and year my daughter was born. rambutans rule!