Mamon Chinos! . . . Rico!

Mamon chino is an exotic fruit sporting a red shell with soft spines growing all over it. It resembles a fat, round, red caterpillar and has a large delicious grape like fruit inside its outrageously interesting shell.  It is also known as a Rambutan which means hairy! 

The tasty meat of the fruit, which is easily broken apart, is typically just popped in your mouth to suck and chew on the sweet juicy pulp, but be sure and spit out the large seed.

It is most convenient to just eat the fruit fresh as it is a lot of work to open and remove the seed from a large number of fruit.  Sometimes the fruit is used to make jellies and jams.  If you are patient enough to open enough of the fruit a jam can be made by cooking equal weights of the pulp and sugar together with sufficient lime juice (about 5%) or pectin to help the jam set.

And if you are interested in something really different try this recipe!

                                                                          Savory Stuffed Rambutans

• 2 cloves garlic, firmed.
• 2 teaspoons (approx) firmed coriander roots
• 2 tablespoons fresh coriander leaves (or sage) vegetable oil
• 4 tablespoons ground roasted peanuts
• 4 teaspoons soy sauce.
• 4 tablespoons palm sugar .
• 1 chopped de-seeded chili pepper
• 2 cups fresh or canned rambutans 

Drop the edible oil to fry the crushed garlic and coriander roots. When garlic becomes golden brown , add all the other ingredients except rambutans into this mixture . Cook well and stir until the mixture turns brown and fairly dry. Add rambutans into the ingredients. Cook and mix well for about 2 minutes. Serve as an entree or as a main course with rice...

Mamons do not store well, but if kept cool sealed in plastic with high humidity, they can be kept for about 2 weeks.

To learn more about this amazing fruit check out the Wiki article Rambutan. 

Enjoy your Mamons 

that are also rich in Vitamin C!

Pura Vida!