How To Prepare The Fruit 'ma Toom'

[english_farang_lady]

We are lucky enough to have a MA TOOMB (my spelling) tree in our garden, which is producing mango size fruits with a shell as thick and hard as a coconut, but which is mottled yellow and smooth.

We managed to open one, it is full of a sticky clear nectar and bright orange flesh.

I would love to know how to prepare these or maybe they can be eaten raw?

Someone suggested they must be boiled in water, and the liquid used only.

Any information greatly received.

Thanks.

[Totster]

When the fruit is ripe (yellow) you must first boil it for 10 mins, then it can be opened and the orangy yellow goo between the shell and centre part can be eaten.

Another way you can enjoy mak toom is when the fruit is unripe (green) chop into thinish inch square peices, then dry in the sun for a day until the peices are hard. These peices can then be put in boiling water to make a mak toom infusion. A heavy sharp knife will be needed as the fruit is very hard, and it will be very sticky also.

totster

[BambinA]

i dont know that you can eat raw or not

but i see TH people eat 2 style as

1 dried sliced matoom(bael fruit)- make it as tea

2 fresh matoom cooked with syrup (somebody add it when they bake fruit cake -fusion style)

Edited December 26, 2005 by BambinA

[Thetyim]

Not sure if I am getting mixed up with another plant, with a similar name. but can't you use the stalks as a sort of rhubarb.

[sabaijai]

In English it's called bael or 'bale fruit'. From Wikipedia:

Bael (Aegle marmelos) is a fruit-bearing tree indigenous to India where it is popularly known as Bel, or Beli fruit, Bengal quince, Stone apple, or Wood apple. The tree, which is the only species in the genus Aegle, grows up to 15 meters tall and bears thorns and fragrant flowers. It has a woody-skinned, smooth fruit 5-15 cm in diameter. The skin of some forms of the fruit is so hard it must be cracked open with a hammer. It has numerous seeds, which are densely covered with fibrous hairs and are embedded in a thick, gluey, aromatic pulp.

The fruit is eaten fresh or dried. The juice is strained and sweetened to make a drink similar to lemonade, and is also used in making Sharbat, a refreshing drink where the pulp is mixed with tamarind. The young leaves and small shoots are eaten as salad greens. The fruit is also used in religious rituals and as a homeopathic remedy for such ailments as diarrhea, dysentery, intestinal parasites, dryness of the eyes, and the common cold.

In Hinduism, the Lord Shiva is said to live under the Bael tree.

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[Totster]

When the fruit is ripe (yellow) you must first boil it for 10 mins, then it can be opened and the orangy yellow goo between the shell and centre part can be eaten.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

According to my wife it can be eaten without boiling it first.. however it is easier to eat and more tasty after being boiled.

totster