A fruitful Saturday

Last week, I managed to harvest more than 40 Chiku fruits from my tree in the garden. We only managed to eat about 10. the rest, my mum took to her ex-boss. This morning, I harvested about 30 more fruits. I had the fruit plucker repaired to prevent the fruits from dropping to the ground. If the fruit landed on earth, that was okay. If it hit stones or cement flooring, then it cracks and is no good.

This time around, the Chiku trees did not bear as much fruits as in the past 2 years. I remember that last year, we managed to harvest hundreds of fruits. We were giving bag loads away to neighbours and friends.

The photo above has an egg placed there to give you a perspective of how large is the fruit.

By now, some are you are probably wondering - what are Chikus. They are also known as Sapodilla (Manilkara zapota). Sapodilla is known as chikoo ("चिक्कू" or "chiku," "चीकू,") and sapota in India, sofeda in Eastern India & Bangladesh, sawo in Indonesia, hồng xiêm (lit. "Siamese persimmon") or xa pô chê in Vietnam, lamoot (ละมุด) in Thailand and Cambodia, sapodilla in Guyana sapathilla or rata-mi in Sri Lanka, níspero in Colombia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Dominican Republic and Venezuela, nípero in Cuba and Dominican Republic, dilly in The Bahamas, naseberry in the rest of the Caribbean, and sapoti in Brazil. In Kelantanese Malay, the fruit is called "sawo nilo" which is closer to the original name than the standard Malay "ciku". In Chinese, the name translates roughly to Ginseng Fruit (人參果子), though this is also the name used for the pepino, an unrelated fruit. All that from here.

Problem with Chikus is that it is near impossible to have them ripen on the tree. As soon as it is matured (but not soften yet), I have had birds, shrews, squirrels and even civet cats visiting my garden to have a feast. So we harvest them when they get bigger than the largest grade chicken egg. The fruit is egg shaped and brownish in colour.

Once the matured fruits are plucked, we clean the skin by washing it and then dry the lot under the sun for a day. Leave the fruits in the rice bin or a basket and over time (from a day to a week), the fruit will soften. Once soften, you peel off the skin and eat it. the chikus in my garden are much sweeter than the ones I get from the market. I like mine served chilled (not frozen - just cold).

Delicious!