Seriously. I saw a bunch of those spiny monstrosities at the market and thought they would be great dried as a huge bowl. I’m wondering if you could cut one open, remove the innards and hang it dry with a lot of dessicant in it to dry it up? I can’t find anything but cooking suggestions online.
I’m a little dubious about whether it’d stay together in a good shape after drying.
As am I. I think that I’m going to give it a go though. Apparently the rind does dry out and crack open naturally, so in theory one should be able to preserve it if you are careful. I’m going to try hollowing out a green one then packing it full of salt, and painting the outside with wood hardener and preservative. Hopefully that should arrest any growth that might cause it to go bad before the salt can do its work.
The salt will probably do that. I think applying finish before the thing is dry may not work real well.
You might want to see about putting this in a food dryer - or in an oven, provided you have one that will maintain a temperature around 120 F. A microwave oven might work if you can put it on a 10% duty cycle.
Way too big for a microwave. Oven might work provided I pack it with salt first to maintain the shape.
Shrinkage will be a problem.
The somewhat similar Osage orange fruit shrinks to about 1/3 to 1/2 its diameter when dryed.
The experiment begins. I got a 20 lb jackfruit, halved it into two large shallow bowls, packed it with salt and set it in the oven. We shall see.
Jackfruit, I have learned, are extremely annoying to disassemble. They are also somewhat expensive. This had better work or Nahiitashii will have my head on a platter.
Maybe that will fit in the microwave.
I just have to say this is awesome. Probably best to start with jackfruit and tackle durian when you got the former mastered. I know you didn’t say anything about durian, but its the next logical step.
That sounds just awful. The only thing worse than fresh durian, would be hot salty durian.
update.
After a few hrs in the oven, they have turned brown and are getting hard. There is some deformation as the rinds soften before they dry, so I have dumped out the salt and turned them hollow side down to help maintain the shape.
If its spiny, its a Durian.
Jackfruit are relatively smooth.
It depends. Mine is certainly a jackfruit, I’ve eaten both before. The knobs are much spinier then the one in your picture. As of this morning, I have two sheets of pliable dry, rubbery leather on the inside. The outside has dried into a dark brown, woody sheet of small spines. So far, so good! I think that as a craft material, it has potential, but its cost and the amount of labor to make this stuff is somewhat prohibitive. It also shrinks a LOT. A 20 lb fruit with a fresh diameter of over a foot has yielded about half that in dried “leather”.