15 Astonishing Facts About Rambutan: #10 Will Blow Your Mind!

9. The Surprising Versatility of Rambutan in Cuisine

Although rambutan is most usually eaten fresh as a snack, its culinary uses go well beyond basic eating. Foodies and inventive chefs have discovered imaginative approaches to include this unusual fruit into a variety of meals. Rambutan can give sweets a distinctive spin from classic recipes. Rambutan sorbet or ice cream, for instance, has a cool tropical taste, but rambutan-infused jellies and puddings create an interesting texture contrast. Rambutan can be a garnish for marine dishes or a sweet accent to salads in savoury cuisine. Some daring mixologists have even started adding rambutan to cocktails to create unusual beverages highlighting the delicate taste of the fruit. Fascinatingly, even normally thrown-away rambutan seeds can be roasted and consumed to provide a nutty taste akin to chestnuts. Young rambutan leaves are a vegetable used in several Southeast Asian cuisines that provide soups and stews a distinctive taste. This adaptability in food uses shows how one fruit may be turned into many gastronomic sensations just depending on the chef's imagination. Rambutan has also become popular in molecular gastronomy as chefs try spherification to produce rambutan caviar or use the fruit in foams and gels. Rambutan has become a tropical variation on classic baked products in the realm of baking, showing up in pastries, tarts, and even bread. Rambutan is now being included into certain creative food makers' processed products such fruit juices, flavoured yoghurts, and even savoury sauces. Often coupled with other tropical fruits or spices to produce complex flavour combinations, the fruit's distinctive taste profile has also made it a popular choice in the making of handcrafted jams and preserves.