Duku - Ingredient Spotlight

by Emily Matchar (Subscribe to Emily Matchar's posts)
Posted Dec 8th 2008 1:00PM
Filed under: Asia, Fruit, Ingredient Spotlight

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Wikipedia

Imagine if grapefruits turned greenish, shrank to the side of golf balls and lost their hard pith. That's the duku for you. Lansium Duranum, known in various languages as langsat, lansone, kokosan, gadu guda, lon bon and longkong duku grows throughout the tropical zones of Asia. They grow in clusters on trees, and are usually bought by the bunch. To eat a duku, cut it in half and simply squeeze until the fleshy lobes pop out of their jackets. It tastes remarkably like grapefruit, though some find it even more bitter (I don't). Duku are not widely available in the US (have any of you seen them?) but are ubiquitous in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and other parts of Southeast Asia.

Tags: duku, ingredient spotlight, tropical fruit

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12-08-2008 @ 4:03PM

Baron said...

Link also used Duku nuts for his slingshot in several of the Zelda games. I have been thinking it was a made up thing for quite some time.

12-09-2008 @ 7:12AM

Fred said...

In Toronto, you can get them at the fruit stands in Chinatown. They're imported from Thailand.

Actually, the fruit can be very sweet. Stay away from the seeds - they're very bitter.

12-09-2008 @ 2:37PM

Teddy said...

This looks like what I would call Logan Nuts. I know I've seen them canned places... Fresh- hmm I bet if you went to little saigon they'd be there but not in the best shape since they grown no where NEAR here.

Teddy

1-17-2009 @ 8:32AM

arum0r said...

U're not entirely correct. The picture above correctly depicts the fruit called 'dukus'. But langsat is not the same fruit. To uninitiated, both fruits look the same. But 'langsat' is a bit smaller, a thinner jacket and with proportionally bigger seeds, thus less flesh. There exist a hybrid, too, called 'dukulangsat'. This hybrid has thinner jacket like langsat but proportionally smaller seeds but more flesh like dukus.

They are less suitable for export outside of the region since the fruits do not last long, typically 1 week after been plucked from the trees. Attempts at freezing or preserving the fruits in cans have generally been considered as failed. To make matter worse the trees bear fruits only seasonally; usually once a year, right in the middle of a rainy season.

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