Maiore - part 2, cooking breadfruit

Here are some ideas for those of you interested in cooking with breadfruit:

The simplest and one of the best methods is to cook it over a camp-fire or BBQ, it gives it great flavor - otherwise cooking on the gas burner works well too:
Take one ripe breadfruit, they're usually best kept a day at least after picking, they develop more flavor that way. It should give slightly when you squeeze it, but not be soft to the touch.

When the breadfruit is well charred all over (about 20-30 minutes), then remove the skin with a sharpened stick, wrap it in a cloth or some leaves and beat it lightly with a stick to soften it up, then just eat it in chunks in place of bread or taro.

Tahitians like to eat this with tinned corned beef, that has been cooked over the heat with some tomato sauce (not ketchup) with onion and garlic, then doused in mitihue (a sauce made of the fermented pulp of young coconuts). It's super greasy and salty, but the taste and texture combination is excellent. If tinned corned beef doesn't sound so appetizing to you then bolognese works as a good substitue, particularly if you add a few lardons at the beginning.

Here are a few slightly more exotic ideas:
Breadfruit soup
This is a recipe based on a Caribbean version of vichyssoise, but we don't always have leeks here, so I often just use onion and I like to eat it hot with a pinch of chipotle pepper or paprika to give it a kick.

Ingredients:
1/4 breadfruit peeled cored and coarsely chopped up
2 tbsp butter
2 onions, diced
3 cloves of garlic crushed
1l chicken stock
salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste
500ml milk or half-cream

Fry onions and garlic in the butter over a low heat, for about 5 minutes until soft and translucent, add the stock and breadfruit, bring to the boil and simmer for about 20 mins, until the breadfruit is soft. Blend soup and add the milk and seasonings, to taste. Serve with a swirl of cream and sprinkle with finely chopped green onions or chives.

Breadfruit fritters (Jeegujje Podi)
Breadfruit makes for great fries, just substituting breadfruit for potato. Here is a slightly more complicated but delicious recipe adapted from a traditional dish from southern India.

Ingredients:
¼ firm Breadfruit
1 cup Plain flour
2 tbsp Corn Flour
1 tsp Cumin
1 tsp Paprika
1 tsp whole Mustard seed
pinch of Fenugreek
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup milk

Peel the bread fruit and remove the core and seeds. Slice the breadfruit into about 5mm thick slices and put them in water untill required. Sift the flour and other dry ingredients together, mix with the milk to make a thick paste. Dip dried breadfruit slices in a little bit of cornflour then turn in the batter and deep fry for 5 minutes, until golden brown. Drain on a paper towel and eat while still warm with a homemade chutney or ketchup!

Breadfruit jam

Ingredients:

1 breadfruit
500g brown sugar
1 lime juiced
1/2 vanilla pod

Boil the breadfruit in water for 10 minutes, then drain and put in a pan with all the other ingredients, add 1 cup of water and cook slowly for about 30 mins, it will get very thick and you may need to add a little more water to keep it from sticking at the bottom.
This is a recipe I found surfing the net, I just tried it out yesterday, and frankly the jury is still out on this idea - breadfruit is a bit like pumpkin, it has such a subtle flavour that if you're going to make jam with it you need to load it with spices, or it just tastes sugary. Maybe cardamon and cinnamon would be good. You could try using a very ripe breadfruit, or it might even benefit from being mixed with something else, it makes a super thick gluey paste so maybe it could be mixed with banana or even coconut (milk/grated) to make it a bit more interesting......