Fresh Rambutan

For fans of sweet, juicy fruit, stop in at Trader Joe’s this week and pick up a clamshell packet of a dozen fresh Rambutan fruit – large round (golf ball-sized) reddish pink fruit with greenish prickly spines (they don’t hurt) on the exterior.

A tropical fruit native to Southeast Asia, the Rambutan is also grown in Guatemala and imported into the US. Sweet, juicy, and refreshing, the Rambutan is a wholesome, healthy snack that is often described as a big grape with a different kind of skin.

Similar to a lychee but bigger, the Rambutan weighs about an ounce and is easy to eat if you follow a few quick steps. Place a paper towel on a cutting board.

Hold a Rambutan down and gently slice through the leather-like skin around the center so that the outer skin can be lifted off.

Then, squeeze the bottom exterior flesh, pushing the oval-shaped fruit into your mouth or a bowl. Eat the fruit like a cherry or an olive, being careful not to swallow the almond-shaped pit. Spit out the pit and discard.

The 12 ounce 12-pack clamshell container of Rambutan fruit is $4.99 at Trader Joe’s.