Roast Jackfruit

We love a Sunday roast here in our house and so today we were delighted to find a new replacement for the usual meat part of the meal. Jackfruit. (I buy it in tins from the supermarket.)

We have actually tried jackfruit a few times before in a bolognaise, however I have to say that I much preferred it roasted today as it held the flavours of the seasoning better and had a lovely texture. (We used the recipe in the BISH BASH BOSH! book.) We needed about 3 x 400g tins for the four of us and we just had to season it and then roast it for 40 mins.

It was a simple and delicious main event for our roast dinner and the boys ate it all up very happily.

I actually find that the biggest challenge I have when trying a new vegan recipe is to be able to let go of any expectations that it will taste like the meat I am trying to replace. It never does. It is normally delicious in its own right and so there is just no point in trying to compare it.

Jackfruit for example is often described as ‘pulled’ in recipes, but I find that this then just distorts my expectation as to what it should taste like. I am automatically thinking “Oh yes I like pulled pork!” and so even though I haven’t had pulled pork for well over a year now, I am still having to try to train my brain to not have any preconceived ideas as to what the jackfruit is going to taste like. Otherwise, I find that it can actually make it harder for me to decide if I like it or not as my taste buds are then completely confused when it doesn’t taste like pulled pork………although saying that I think that I actually preferred it to pork today and it did go very well with apple sauce!