How to Cut 5 Atypical Fruits

Author: Shannon Miller Lifestyle

Want to try a new fruit but don’t know how to cut it?

Have you tried to cut a fruit before and ended up with a huge mess and not a lot of edible fruit left?

Here are a few tips and tricks to cutting atypical fruits that can often be hard to cut. Please remember to always practice safe food handling techniques by washing your hands as well as washing your fruit, and all knives, cutting boards, and other utensils before you begin.

Mango

To choose a mango, do not focus on their color, as this is not a good indicator of ripeness with this particular fruit. Choose one that gives slightly when you squeeze it. Smelling it at the bottom will also give you a clue as to if it is ripe.

The Mango has a long flat seed in the middle of it. Find the long axis and stand the mango up with the stem end up. You will slice the mango lengthwise on each side of the seed, cutting as close to the seed as possible. Once you have three pieces, separate the piece with the seed, take the two cheeks and make criss-cross slices through the meat, being careful not to slice through the skin. Using your middle and ring fingers, push the skin side of the mango cheek up, so that the skin can lie flat on your plate: the cross pattern will fan out. You can either serve the pieces like this or use knife to carefully separate the pieces from the skin. You can also eat the flesh around the seed; just peel away the skin and enjoy!

Pomegranate

Pomegranate juice stains practically everything, so it is best to use a plastic cutting board, near the sink when cutting a pomegranate. Fill a mixing bowl about half way with water. You will want a bowl big enough to get both of your hands in with the fruit. Take a sharp kitchen knife and cut the pomegranate vertically. Place the fruit in the bowl with the water. Stick your hands in the bowl and start peeling away the rind and separating the seeds from the white fleshy part called the albedo. The seeds will sink to the bottom of the bowl and the rind and albedo will float to the top. Skim out the rind and albedo from the top of the water and you will be left with a bowl of the seeds in water. Drain the water and your pomegranate seeds are ready to eat!

Pineapple

Pineapples are best when eaten fresh, but cutting one can seem like quite a daunting task.

Choosing a pineapple: The best pineapples are going to be golden, some green is okay, but you do not want the entire pineapple to be green. The smell will be sweet and fresh, smell it from the bottom to get the most accurate aroma. You will also want the pineapple to be firm, if it is too soft it will likely have bad spots in it.

Cutting the pineapple: After washing the pineapple, lay it on its side on the cutting board, use a chef’s knife to cut off the crown and the stem. Stand the pineapple up and begin peeling the skin off from top to bottom, cutting as thinly as possible to save as much fruit as possible. Do not cut off the eyes during this or you will loose too much of the flesh. Next you will cut off the eyes. If you have a tomato corer, that is the easiest way to individually cut off the eyes, you can also use a paring knife and cut them individually. If you are going for a quicker way, you will see that the eye spots line up in diagonal rows running lengthwise down the pineapple. Take your knife and cut a shallow “V” shape to remove the eyes.

From here, you can choose to cut them in rings or into chunks. We will go the chunk route. Stand the pineapple up on one end again. You will cut the pineapple lengthwise in half and then each of those into halves as well, so you end up with 4 pieces. The core is edible, but very tough, so we are going to also remove it by just slicing straight down each of the 4 pieces, being careful not to cut too much of the soft flesh along with it. Then, lay each of the 4 pieces down and cut into ½ inch to ¾ inch chunks, depending on your preference.

Kiwi

Kiwis, also known as the Chinese gooseberry, look unappealing at first, with their brown fuzzy skin, but they are quite delicious! There are numerous ways to cut the kiwi, depending if you like to leave the skin on or off, but we will focus on taking the skin off in this method.

You will want to choose a kiwi that is soft but not mushy. After washing the fruit, cut off both ends of the kiwi, you will need to expose a good amount of the green flesh underneath. Take a regular tablespoon and slide it in between the flesh and the skin, gently slide the spoon around the fruit, loosening the flesh from the skin, you may need to do this on both sides depending on how big your spoon and kiwi is. Once it is loose, pop the fruit out from the skin and slice it into circles or chunks, depending on your personal preference and enjoy!

Melons

Melons are another fruit that have numerous ways to properly cut them, although this one is an easy way to cut them.

First, you will need to cut the melon lengthwise. If you are dealing with a cantaloupe or other melon with seeds in the middle, you will need to scoop out the seeds in the middle with a spoon and dispose of them. Then you will cut each piece in half lengthwise, into quarters, and once more into eighths. Once you have eight pieces, turn the pieces so the meat side is facing up and cut 6 to 8 pieces through the meat to the rind, but do not cut through the rind. Carefully cut in between the meat and the rind to separate the pieces. Flatten each piece out as you go to make it a little easier to remove. Repeat with each of the eight pieces. Discard the rinds and you are ready to serve!