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Young jackfruit stew (Gudeg) is traditional Javanese stew where young jackfruit is stewed in spices and herbs and usually characterized by its sweet taste and its dark brown color from teak leaves.
Gudeg Yogya is traditional Indonesian dish from the city of Yogyakarta in Central Java island. I had this dish once a long long time ago and never thought about it until I saw the recipe in The Indonesian Kitchen by Sri Owen. I decided to give it a try with some modification by adding chicken and red beans.
Gudeg is Javanese dish made with young green jackfruit (sayur nangka) cooked in coconut milk, spices, chicken/meat and hard-boiled eggs. Finding a fresh young green jackfruit here is quite impossible. So, I used canned green jackfruit, which works perfectly fine. Young green jackfruit is very common ingredient used in Indonesian kitchen.
In Indonesia, gudeg is prepared by using teak leaves that contribute to its dark brown color. I do not have any teak leaves here and so I just make a substitution with black tea.
Gudeg / Young Jack fruit Stew
Ingredients
- 1 Tbsp cooking oil
- 4 bay leaves (daun salam)
- 4 pieces of bone-in chicken thighs/drumstick
- 1 ½ lb canned green jack fruit
- ½ cup red beans (soaked for 4 hours) optional
- 6 cups coconut milk
- 1 black tea tea bag
- 50 gr Palm sugar or dark brown sugar
- Pinch of salt
- 4 hard-boiled eggs
Ground spices
- 4 garlic cloves peeled and finely chopped
- 1 tsp coriander seeds
- 8 candlenuts closest substitution is macademia nuts, or 10 blanched almonds, chopped
- 3 shallots
- 1 inch ginger
- 2 inch galangal
Instructions
- Place all the ingredients for ground spices in a food processor and process into a paste. Add a little bit of water if needed to get it going
- Preheat a large pot or dutch oven with cooking oil. Add the ground spices and bay leaves and saute until fragrant, about 5 minutes. Add the chicken, jackfruit, red beans and stir to mix. Pour in the coconut milk, tea bag, salt, and brown sugar. Bring it to a boil and then lower the heat and cover to let it cook for the next 1 hour. Give it a stir every now and then. Uncover and then add in the hard-boiled eggs and let it cook again for another hour or so until the jackfruit is soft to the point where you can easily shred it with a fork. The beans should be soft and chicken meat is almost falling off the bones. The liquid should be almost all absorbed at this point and the eggs are nicely tinted with brown color
- Serve with rice and sambal on the side
10 comments
What an intriguing recipe! I definitely want to try this. I’ve never cooked with jackfruit — and now I must! 🙂 P.S. Beautiful photos and gorgeous pottery!
Thank you so much Valentina
Love this Marv!! My parents have jackfruit plant in their kitchen garden so I grew up eating a lot of it. This looks like just the thing to make this season.
Hi Swayam, So good to see your comment here! It’s my favorite thing to eat too, as a fruit or in a stew
I haven’t tried jackfruit yet, this makes me want to find some, it sounds really good
Thank you Dahn. It’s not very common to cook savory dishes with young jackfruit, but worth the try 🙂
Now I am motivated to find some jack fruit. This recipe sounds delicious.
Thank you Amanda. Hope you can find some 🙂
I have been wanting to try jackfruit for months! You’ve now inspired me to go find one this week!
Hi Lisa,
Thank you for stopping by. These young jackfruits are only available in a canned version at Asian grocery store (at least where I’m at). The ripe version (with yellow flesh) and sweet taste that is usually eaten as a fruit is available at a major grocery store like Hyvee.