Hit the Road Jackfruit

Does anybody know the song ‘Hit the Road Jack’ ? It is an old song written by rhythm and blues artist Percy Mayfield and recorded by singer, pianist Ray Charles. It hit number one for two weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, beginning on Monday, October 9, 1961.By the way, I am not in the process of changing from “cooking to singing career”. I just borrow the name of the song for the title of my cooking story today.In cooking, I am more of ’cooking-make-easy’ type of a person. I don’t like cooking a dish which takes a long time and complicated method. But one day, out of the blue, I had the gut to try cooking ’Gudeg’, the signature dish of the Special Region of Yogyakarta (Indonesian: Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta, or DIY), Central Java.

Gudeg is made of young ‘nangka’ (jack fruit) among other things, boiled for several hours with palm sugar and coconut milk. Additional spices include garlic, shallot, candlenut, coriander seed, galangal and teak leaves, the latter giving a brown color to the dish. It is also called Green Jack Fruit Sweet Stew. Gudeg is usually served with white rice, chicken, hard-boiled egg, tofu and/or tempeh, and a stew made of crispy beef skins (sambal goreng krecek).

There are three types of gudeg: Dry, Wet and East-Javanese style. Dry gudeg is a gudeg which only has a bit of coconut milk and is served dry. Wet gudeg is a gudeg which (obviously) has a wetter look than the dry gudeg. There is much more coconut milk used in making this type. Meanwhile, the East-Javanese style gudeg employs a more spicier and hotter taste, compared to the Yogyakarta-style gudeg, which is sweeter.

I found the recipe of the Yogya-style Gudeg in one of the cooking artciles in website and by following this recipe I started my marvelous cooking misadventure with Mr Jackfruit.

Ingredients
5 Shallots
10 candle nuts
10 cloves of Garlic
4 salam leaves or Indian bay leaves
250 gram young Jackfruit and some teak-leaves
12 gram coriander seeds
6 gram cummin
40 gram palm sugar, shaved
2 cup (500ml) coconut milk
2 tsp. (30g) Tamarind
1 kg Chicken (cut into small pieces with bone
5 cups (1 liter) water
2 inches bruised galanga

Method
Cut jack fruit 1 inch thick wash.
Boil the jack-fruit together with the teak-leaves to give color .
After the jack-fruits become tender, drain from the water & discard the teak-leaves
Grind shallots, garlic, and candle nuts. Saute paste
Add salam leaves, and galangga, until fragrant then add chicken pieces
Stir fry until chicken changes color
Pour 4 cups of water and palm sugar, cumin, corriander, tamarind, and bring to a boil
Add jack fruit and simmer until chicken and vegetables are tender
Add coconut milk 5 minutes before it’s done, bring back to a boil

Serve hot with rice. This dish is sweet and usually served with shrimp craker and it supposed to look like this:

For every first time cooking trial, I always follow a recipe to the letter and I did the same with this Gudeg recipe. First, I boiled the jack fruit and the teak-leaves. While waiting for the jack fruit to become tender, I pound the ingredients, saute the paste then add the chicken with the rest of the ingredients. In the meantime, I checked whether the jack fruit has become tender by tasting it a bit but wait a minute, why did the jack fruit taste bitter? Initially I thought it was probably due to the jack fruit was not cooked long enough so I cooked a bit longer. It still tasted bitter. Oh, probably because it was not yet added to the chicken. So I followed the next instruction of the recipe. But even after the dish seemed well cooked, the jack fruit still tasted bitter. Apparently, the palm sugar and coconut milk did not seem able to cover the bitter taste of the jack fruit

I was devastated. The labor of many hours was a total failure and I did not have a clue what have I done wrong with the jack fruit. The next thing I know was that the Gudeg of my labor went strait to the bin. I really felt betrayed by Mr. Jackfruit and suddenly the words of the song popped into my mind

Hit the road Jack and don’t you come back no more, no more, no more, no more

Since then I never dare to try cooking Gudeg Yogya again. I decided that a dish using Mr. Jackfruit as the main ingredient is not the type of dish I will be able to cook. I prefer to buy Ready To Eat (RTE) Gudeg at one of the Gudeg sellers whenever I feel like eating it.

As much as I love cooking, I find that buying RTE Gudeg or any other jack fruit dish is much easier, cheaper and more satisfying than trying to cook it myself

Hit the Road Jack fruit, don't you cook no more no more no more....Hit the road Jack fruit