Spondias Dulcis-Ambarella or hog plum of Malaysia

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• published: 22 Nov 2012
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My mother has green hands. Whatever she plants will grow, flower, bear fruits and flourish. At the back of our garden is an ambarella tree, which is also known as spondias dulcis or the hog plum of Malaysia. The Malays call it 'buah kedondong'. The locals call it 'buah dong dong'. The Hokkien Chinese call it 'bah ko long'. A member of the anacardiaceae family, this fruit is popular as a fresh fruit juice. To prepare this drink, the fruit is first washed, the skin peeled and washed.The flesh is cut away from the seed and crushed in a grinder with water, ice cubes, preserved dried salted sour plum flesh and a bit of sugar. The fruit is one of the ingredients used in the preparation of 'rojak'- a Malaysian version of salad. 'Rojak' is traditionally prepared by mixing slices of cucumber, turnips, fried tofu, pineapples with a dark sweetened sauce made of shrimp paste. Other Malaysian fruits added to 'rojak' are the water or Malay apple, guavas, mango, starfruit and boiled cuttlefish. The salad is served with a sprinkle of blended peanuts, sesame seed, chili and squeezing lime juice over the salad. The 'rojak paste' contains red chili, 'gula apong' or the nipah palm nectar, soy sauce, shrimp paste or 'belacan'. 'Belacan', on the other hand, is prepared by washing the shrimp, draining it, adding salt, sago flour, Chinese red yeast to the mixture and pounding it. The paste is flattened, cut and laid out to dry under the sun for several days until it is dried and hardened. It is stored in an air-tight jar for future use. The most common way of preparing this fruit is by pickling it. The fruit is washed, skin peeled, washed, drained and preserved with salt and sugar. It is sealed in containers and refrigerated. Some people preserve it by soaking the peeled fruit in a solution of cool boiled water and add in dried salted sour plums . There are others who pickle it in a sugar solution. Pickles prepared this way has to be consumed in one to two days otherwise it will develop a wine taste on the third day and start to rot within a week. The fruit is also served as an appetizer. It is called a 'sambal'. This is the indigenous way of preparing the food. The fruit is washed, skin peeled and the flesh is shredded or pounded. A few chili padi (a small chili pepper), belacan or shrimp paste, dried salted anchovies are pounded and mixed with the shredded hog plum. The shrimp paste or belacan is micro-waved first before it is pounded. The head of the anchovies and its stomach are removed first and washed before it is pounded. Lime juice or 'limau kesturi' is squeezed in to kill germs and make it more appetizing. My mother used this fruit to replace potatoes in the preparation of chicken, pork rib or beef curries. She does not do this all the time but claims her curries cooked this way are highly praised by her relatives and friends during her nursing years. My mother learned the Baba Nyonya style of cooking curry with this fruit after a Nyonya madam asked her for the fruits. Being a generous soul, she gave her two huge bunches. In return, the Nyonya gave her the curry cooked with the fruit. I tried cooking the fruit as a curry stew without the meat. I fried pounded red chillies, garlic, ginger, red shallots, a spoon of tumeric powder and two spoonful of sugar in a kuali with a few spoons of cooking oil. When it is fragrant, I added in Indian curry paste and later the peeled whole fruit. Water is added to simmer and stew it. The stew is ready to eat when the fruit is soft. The taste is exquisitely sweet and sour! No wonder people rave about it. Every weekend, I will harvest this fruit and bring it over to my office to share with my colleagues. They will eat it with salt, chili, soy sauce and sugar. Sometimes, my colleagues will bring it home to make 'sambal', juice it and making a pickle out of it. My mother is back to eating this fruit after she heard it is good for diabetes, constipation and high blood pressure . This fruit is claimed to be able to lower blood cholesterol. The fruit contains fiber, carotene, protein, calcium, iron, niacin, vitamin A & C. This fruit gives my mother a lot of happiness with its evergreen fruiting. It also generates an extra income for her from the sale of the fruits to fruit vendors. Each time the fruit is ready for picking, we harvested about 20-40 kilos from a tree. We used to give away bags after bags of this fruit to our neighbors because we can hardly finish the fruit ourselves. Mum is planting two more trees in our front yard. I enjoy harvesting and selling the fruit. Money certainly grow on trees! I dedicate this video to all who enjoy this fruit and those who have yet to discover the many ways of eating this fruit in different parts of the world where this fruit tree is found. I hope you learn more from this sharing from my heart and start to appreciate this ugly looking fruit which God has blessed us with.