This fruit has so many names and grows in various tropical countries all over the world. To see the known names I suggest this wiki page about Ambarella. In Indonesia, it’s called Kedondong and also seen the name spondias dulcis. I am going to pickle it. Spoiler alert: DELICIOUS! This recipe is called manisan kedondong in Indonesia.
Time to make it about 2 days. It takes a while because of soaking the fruit in a mixture.
Recommended read: Make your own pickles
Ingredients to make manisan kedondong
- 1 kg of Ambarella (kedondong) fruits, pick the young ones.
- 1/2 tbs of lime betel
- 1 liter of water
- 1 cup of sugar
- 2 tbs of salt
- 2 drops yellow food color
Step 1
Peel of the skin from the fruit. To make it easier I am using a potato peeler. When the whole process is done, we can eat it immediately.
Step 2
Wash the kedondong several times. Instead of rinsing it with running water, I use a bowl and massage it through. Rinse and repeat this several times.
Step 3 (optional) Lime betel
After washing I soak it with lime betel. However this is not available in some countries. It is even forbidden in some places. However in Indonesia it’s a common thing. Curious? more about it here.
The optional process takes 8 hours to soak in to this.
Wash the fruit again after this process. It should be cleaned from the white betel lime. The chalk look a like.
Step 4
Boil 1 liter of water with 1 cup of sugar and 2 tablespoons of salt. Everything should be dissolved easily because the water is hot. Note that if you did skip step 3, you will be using less water to add vinegar later. So disolve the suger salt in less water. Boil it to disolve it easily and add vinegar
To give a nice colour to the kedondong (Ambarella fruit), I’ll add food colouring. Just 2 drops for 1 liter. When everything is dissolved, turn off the heat. Stir the mixture a bit and let it cool down.
If you have skipped step 3 with the lime betel, you can add vinegar to replace the lime betel. Add it to your own taste. Tip: you can always add more later.
Step 5
Everything should be cooled off. Soak the mixture for 2 days. You can taste one or a little by cutting some off. If the taste is not sour enough, you can add more vinegar. If it’s too sour, you can re-soak it in sugar salt and water for several more hours. This will help reducing the sour taste.
Kedondong ready to eat
Remove the fruit from the mixture. It looks like it has a shiny coating, this comes from the food colouring. You can just eat it like this. If you like to add a spice palette continue with the recipe. I’ll be making a simple spicy dip.
Optional: making extra spicy kedondong
Grab the pestle and mortar. I’ll be grinding chili, salt and some shrimp paste (terasi). When you are done grinding, smashing and mixing this will add a whole new level of taste. However id you have low tolerance for spicy food, I would suggest to skip this step.
Voila, Manisan kedondong. Ambarella fruit with a spicy kick.
Sweet and spicy Ambarella fruit (kedondong)
Ingredients
- 1 kg Ambarella (kedondong) fruits. Preferably the smaller and young ones
- 1/2 tbs lime betel Optional (replace with vinigar if not available)
- 1 liter water
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 tbsp salt
- 2 drops yellow food colouring
Instructions
- Peel the fruit, remove all the skin. To make it easy you can use a potato peeler. This works well.
- Wash the fruit in a bowl of water. You can rinse and repeat this several times with new water
- Optional: disolve lime betel in water and soak the fruit in it for 8 hours
- After it soaked in the lime betel solution, wash the fruit several times and clean it from any white residu
- Boil water with salt and sugar. Make sure everything is dissolved and add 2 drops of food colouring. Let it all cool down to room temperature
- If you have skipped the lime betel, add vinigar to taste.
- Soak the fruit in the mixture for 2 days
- Optional making it spicy: Grind chili with salt and shrimp paste. This can be served as a dip next to the kedondong
