Ambla

First post of 2006 ~ Something to do with FOOD... Cos, as I always mentioned.. We live to eat, NOT eat to live.

I love this sourish crunchy fruit. This fruit has several different names.. In Malay it is known as buah kedondong. We called it as Ambla in Penang. It is called differently in Sarawak. I remembered calling it something like mankulong in my dialect. Scientific name Ambarella? (Sounds like Umbrella to me :P) I have no idea what is the chinese name for this fruit. The home-made pickled version is still the best.

The skin and flesh will turn from dark green colour to golden yellow colour when ripe. When the fruit is half ripe, it is firm in texture and the flesh is sour, acidic, crispy and juicy. When the fruit is ripe, the flesh will subsequently become soft and sweet. The bigger fruit has spiky seed (or core??).. So watch out !! Used to eat this fruit very frequent in Sarawak. But so far, I have never come across the bigger fruit in Penang. What I see here is the smaller fruits without the hard spiky core. Might be it's available in other states.

And it can be made into fruit juice as well... This is one of the popular cold refreshing drink ~ the blended ambla mixed with assam or sui boey.