Here comes the star of all fruits

Irrespective of what medicine a doctor prescribes for jaundice, star fruit juice is part of the treatment in many homes — a home remedy of sorts. I remember people coming to our house every summer to ask for star fruit from our backyard orchard.

We ate the fruit to prevent jaundice, and the women of the family would make star fruit concentrate at a juicing and canning facility run by self help groups to last an entire season. This was preserved to make sherbets in summer, and would last us an entire season.

While we craved and begged for synthetic orange juice, all we got was chilled star fruit juice. Strangely, few health journals specify the connection between star fruit and jaundice. However, according to tradition, star fruit is the star when it comes to the topic of jaundice on online health and food discussion platforms. Star fruit is referred to as kamrakh in Hindi, ambanamkaya in Telugu, thambaratham in Tamil, chaturappuli in Malayalam, karambal in Marathi, kamranga in Bengali and kordoi in Assamese. In other parts of the world, it is called carambola.

As food

There are many ways in which star fruit can be consumed. It can be eaten raw, cooked and squeezed into juice, besides being made into jam, squash or syrup. Pickling star fruit is also an amazing idea. Sour varieties of this fruit are used in several meat and fish recipes from Asia.

Dried carambola is popular in the Caribbean islands. Dried star fruit can be ground and used to stuff meat. Desserts with star fruit syrup are also a great idea to tweak the flavour. For a quick snack, slice the fruit horizontally, sprinkle some sugar and a pinch of salt, then garnish with paprika.

Star fruit juice

Ingredients

Star fruit: 4 (yellow ones)

Sugar: 2 tbsp (adjust according to the sweetness of the fruit)

Pineapple juice: One shot (canned will do)

Raw ginger juice: 1 tbsp (optional)

Method

Remove the hard skin from the edges of the fruit. Cut and remove seeds, and blend the fruit with sugar. Sieve if needed and add the pineapple juice and ginger. Add some crushed ice and serve. Add a slice of star fruit as garnish.