I was never a big fan of guyabano… I always thought of it as the milder cousin of durian, which I also lack a fondness for. Something about the consistency of the flesh, a bit phlegm-like if I must be honest, and the slightly off-putting flavor and aroma that accompanies it. So I have rarely purchased guyabano to enjoy just ripe and chilled, as I might say, atis or cherimoya. The reason I purchased this particular large specimen of guyabano was the stall and vendor selling it… it seemed to have a nice provenance, and maybe I could learn to overcome my dislike for the fruit…
Back at home, I let the fruit ripen for another 2-3 days until it was slightly soft and the peel beginning to yellow just a tad. I stuck it in the fridge and a few hours later split the fruit open. That same smell was there, but I tasted a few spoons of the pulp and it wasn’t that bad…but it wasn’t endearing either. So I tried in in another form, a simple shake made up of water, guyabano pulp, sugar syrup and ice. After a few seconds blitzing it, I tentatively poured half a small glass and tasted it. It was WONDERFUL! Creamy, pleasantly sweet/tart and flavorful, and extremely refreshing. Odd how a simple change in manner of serving the fruit could make such a difference!
This large fruit easily made 5-6 large guyabano shakes, so it was reasonably economical as well. There seems to be a lot of press on guyabano’s anti-cancer or cancer curing properties, so I guess it can’t hurt to drink up. Oh, but make sure to avoid the seeds, they have a mild toxin or poison when taken in large quantities. :)
56 Responses
I love the fruit, but I don’t know how to pick them right! :(
If you have any leftovers, MM…freeze the pulp and then blitz them with simple syrup…be prepared for brain freeze though…albeit a real thirst quencher in this hot weather!…guyabano slushie, Gej!
MM…have you tried freezing the iba first?? Too bad, we don’t have fresh kamias here but I will try what you suggested.
Too fond of guaiabano shake. I can get them here (in Toronto) in Vietnamese restaurants, thick and fortified with condensed milk. In Brazil the bartender in every corner juice bar will make it for you. At home, I like using my microplane for a light dusting of nutmeg over the frothy top.
There were a few attempts at giving a Filipino translation for certain dishes and drinks hereabouts and recall shake being translated as niluglog which almost made me soil my keyboard. You see luglog to me is to dunk and drain just like you do with the bihon for luglog. I thought if you mean shaken, not stirred (just like 007), your Filipino term is inalog. However, if you know that it’s called frappé in France where it means beaten, binati is kind of close too.
my dad loves guyabano. he always asks me if there are fruits in my farm and they make it into shakes at home.
I have a funny feeling folks fall onto one side or the other of this fruit. I think I may have crossed over, at least in shake form. Footloose, “binating guyabano” sounds almost obscene, no? bettyq, yes, the iba works frozen, and in fact mellows the flavors. At the restaurant, we either use fresh (tartest) or frozen (mellower) or a combination of the two. The color of the shake changes slightly when you use the frozen fruit, but it still tastes great. And yes, I have some frozen guyabano in the freezer now. :)
Love guyabano shake! on vacation, if I can’t get hold of the fruit, a well-chilled Zest-O or Nestle tetra pak will do. but nothing like the real thing!
apart from being delicious, the guyabano fruit is quite a powerful aphrodisiac. try it and you just might confirm that this is not hearsay.
Love, love, love guyabano shake! When I have a craving, I go to a Vietnamese resto here in the Bay Area and order their guyabano pearl shake :D.
Take it with salt.
Love guyabano too but can’t seem to pick good ones consistently. They look good on the outside, but once they ripen, some parts are hard and inedible. Any tips?
Sorry for being off-topic, but I’ve heard that the Philippine version of Jr. Master Chef has been approved. Is this true? So will we be seeing you on a regular basis?
At a dinner party once, they served a luscious dessert of scooped out guyabano with gata, sugar and lots of ice. Sarap!
underqualified, the program has been “approved” since March or earlier, I think. I wrote this post on an early experience during auditions… But no, will not be on it on a regular basis, but there may be some surprises, who knows?
i love guyabano! there are varieties that are super-sweet, and i i cant’ resist buying whenever i see them in the market.
My favorite shake if I can get it!
What is it about taste and food preferences?
I so love atis and its humungous South American cousin the cherimoya, but I won’t ever trade guyabano for creamy, custardy, heavenly durian ( nevermind the hellish smell), and then there’s rose water flavored anything which for a good reason gives me the olfactory and gustatory sensation of…… a sweaty rosewater spritzed tour guide in Nepal?
. M, have you tried guyabano in its naked glory?- no sugar added. We do this at home. We puts the guyabano fruit sans the seeds and skin in the juicer . It has a thicker consistency to the picture above and chill it for a few hours. Yum!
I am not fond of guyabano, but we have one in the fridge today. Will try to make some shake out of it, thanks MM.
Seems it would lend itself to a mixed drink, say with a shot of rum or vodka.
naalala ko pa, ang prutas na ito ang ginagawa naming meryenda at juice noong mga bata pa kami. nanay would just squeeze and in an instant, fresh guyabano juice.
but the evolution of this fruit is actually, exciting. with the news that it can cure cancer, the ordinary fruit becomes the fruit for all seasons and for health reasons.
Ms. Connie C. …I abhor the smell of fresh durian since i was a kid. However, I turned a new leaf about 12 years ago when I spotted a group of people hovering over a pile of frozen durian. One lady picked one for me and told me to try it. I was hooked after that incident but only towards FROZEN DURIAN. I prefer to eat it partially frozen. I still cannot get myself to eat fresh durian though. Strange, eh?
I bet, MM…it would taste great ….your frozen guyabano done like froyo?!?
Hmmm, indeed you have mixology skillz.
Awww… it’s a sad thing that you don’t like durian. have you tried it in other forms like ice cream, jam, shakes, and pies?
I read that guayabano has anti-cancer properties. However, a person selling guayabano capsules told me that the anti-cancer properties is not in the fruit but in the leaves and bark which have to be extracted and its what is in the capsules. Totoo kaya yan? Nevertheless, I love guayabano shakes.
We once bought durian ice cream in a food exhibit, I taste good! the scent is milder when frozen.
MM, I make guyabano shake whenever the fruit is available. My super food that supplies long-lasting energy.
Quite unfortunately the only way I can get guyabano here is frozen. During our vacations, my grandmother would store slightly underripe guyabano with uncooked rice (bigas I think). She said it helped ripen the guyabano better.
This is a blast from my childhood. We used to have a tree right outside our front door and guyabano “juice” was a staple in our meals – actually just the puree, a little bit of sugar syrup and lots uf crushed ice (we didn’t have a blender until I was 10). I loved the sour-sweet taste of guyabano juice. Strangely, I love the fresh juice/puree but cannot abide any guyabano-flavored stuff. Especially not tetra-pack juices. Hehehehe… =)
I also eat this as is, cut in wedges like a not-too-seed-ful atis. Heaven!
@ying: I usually luck out when getting guyabano. But the best results I have gotten so far are to get ones that are soft but not yielding then put it in the bigasan for 24 to 48 hours. Wrap in newspaper to spare the bigas. Worked every time I employed the technique. Good luck!
I rarely eat guyabano as I find the texture too pulpy and a bit stringy. I love it as a drink though. One fruit I find off-putting, which I would describe exactly as you did the guyabano, is star apple. It just reminds me of, and I apologize in advance for the graphic description, congealed sipon. Totally grosses me out. As for durian, they say if you keep trying you’ll develop a taste for it. I’ve tried so many times- fresh, frozen, ice cream, candy, jam, etc. bottom line is, I don’t like it and probably never will.
I love guyabano, especially the ones coming straight from the tree in our province in Tarlac! I always get first dibs when there’s a fruit up on the tree. That three produces the sweetest fruit, it’s as sweet as the shake already :)
But whenever it’s in season, we always have one from the supermarket or wherever just in case we can get one that’s as sweet. And if we don’t, then we have tons for shake :D
Just curious MM, did the Teen like it? In our household, the true test of how good a dish is or how successful a food ‘experiment’ is, is when the kids fight over it. We’ve been trying to get them to like guyabano for its cancer prevention properties but have not been successful. We’ll give this shake a try… Thanks.
There has been a whole line of wonder fruits that singly entered our consciousness and then exited. Black currants, mangosteen, Tahitian noni, açai, pomegranate and now guaiabano. I hope they compel their marketers to gather evidence first instead of mere anecdotes before they promote anything as miracle cure. Poor sick people are so vulnerable and would resort to anything that holds some promise of cure even if it is just some glimmer of hope.
@Connie C, we can blame our subconscious pulling tricks on us for that. Mother lost her mom as a young girl and all she remembered was the mauve terno she was buried in. The effect on her was devastating for the color purple at home. Anything purple was banned. Ubi which is ubiquitous in Filipino treats, in fact, for this, you can call Filipinos the people who love purple, we only surreptitiously indulged in around Christmastime.
i’m not a fun of guyabano but my moms guyabano shake was really good. I already try guyabano dirty icecream.
Yum. Make ice candy with the leftover. When I get fresh Philippine fruits as pasalubong I immediately process them into fresh shakes and ice candy the rest. Inuunahan ko mabulok at lagi bugbog yung fruits coming out of the maleta. You do need the special ice candy plastic as they are made only in the Philippines.
Footloose: A salty taste comes to mind when I hear niluglog na guyabano. I agree with MM that binating guyabano sounds a tad obscene. I also think binugbog na guyabano may be too violent a name for a drink. Any translation to guyabano smoothie instead?
If The guyabano is good, I eat it by simply scooping out the flesh. The not-so-good ones can be turned into great fruit shakes! Love fresh or frozen durian, too!
i bought 2 guyanbano last sun, they were still unripe. i was advised to wrap them in newspaper to ripen… after 3 days. the bigger one has so many worms, i had to throw it. sayang!! i remove the seed and skin.. and freezed it. still don’t know if i will use them for shake or whatever. i am not fond of this either. but, i try to eat it bec they said it has good health benefits.
Aaahhh, guyabano/guayabano… heaven! I remember eating them with condensed milk poured over the fresh pulp…either way you eat it, fresh, frozen or in a shake form…I’ll take it! Miss that fruit, can’t wait to have Philippine fruit frenzy when I go back for a visit!
MM, what about making ice cream out of it? It would be good…
MM and Mimi, I have to ask why do so many people find the term “binati” obscene? I do know what the other meaning of the term is but for me it primarily means “whisked” or “beaten”. I wonder if there is another tagalog term that is less risqué? Years ago I ordered someone to whisk eggs by saying “magbati ka ng itlog” and everybody burst out laughing! I thought then what dirty minds these people have! because I found it quite a bit of a stretch to find anything green with my instruction. But I noticed I get the same reaction every time so I resorted to saying “magwhisk ka ng itlog” :)
I want to Like or [+1] this post :) . I learned to appreciate guyabano at a young age. There was this scraggly tree at my lolo’s backyard that produced several fruits when in season. Shake, juice or raw, they were always appreciated for their sweetness.
i still go for the iba shake. my new favorite:)
Sorry, guyabano doesn’t move me but like Ms Connie C, durian is a big favorite in all forms-fresh (ooohh! esp fresh!!), frozen, candy, jam, ice cream…As some people say “…smells like hell but tastes like heaven”:)
MM, did you get your new dslr camera? Your shots are back to amazing. I love guyabano scooped out from the skin, chilled and with little evaporated milk.
meg, no, just borrowed the Teen’s camera…
yummy! i wonder where to get good guyabano shake in manila?
i miss cafebola’s kamias too! :-)
Therefore I conclude that the fruits we normally hate becomes acceptable if frozen and blended. Except for tiesa which is not a fruit but an orange colored curse. Gross even if frozen, blended, and infused with mind numbing amounts of vodka.
Who loves tiesa?
I love guyabano but has a string of bad luck buying ones which have bad quality. I think all that I bought last year and this year in Manila were picked too young and so didn’t ripen properly or they just spoil too quickly without getting ripe. However, luck was on my side on a recent trip to Davao City. At P35 / kilo, I bought 2 pieces. We ate one ripe one in the multicab and it was great. First time for me to have good quality guyabano in two years!
I am fond of guyabano shake, but I do not fancy eating the fruit itself. I remember my mom making the shakes whenever my dad brings home a ripe one from our guyabano tree. Blissful and endearing.
I just found out that Guyabano is also a good galactagogue. I’ve also never been fond of this fruit but now I’m trying to look for it, even just for the leaves (to make tea) to increase my milk supply.
I am not a big fan of the fruit but then I tried guyabano shake and it was very refreshing! It was rich, more like the consistency of an avocado shake. It has that creaminess, a bit sour yet delectably sweet. I guess the fruit has lots of Vitamin C, too. Just remember to pay full attention to the guyabano flesh. Some fruits especially those that they say are “over ripe” could have some fruit worms. One can barely notice them since they resemble the fruit fiber.
Hello Marketman,
A relative of mine has bowel cancer, She is daily taking a herbal concoction
which one of the ingredients – guayabano (semi-ripe). Guayabano very high also in anti-oxidants.
To J:
Where did you get the frozen guyabano in the u.s.
Thanks,
Being a resident of Davao City, I always find it frustrating not chancing upon ripe guyabano at the Matina Market. Every time I see guyabano on display, I always think of making a shake from it. I love the fruit since childhood. Our neighbor had a tree from which they harvest and occasionally give us the fruit. I like it better now that a blender is handy. Back then we would hold the fruit by hand, peel it, then eat its pulp, spitting out its black seeds at the same time.
pls. post an example of recipe in making guyabano-buko meat shake. tnx. GBU…
I recently found a recipe online that added kalamansi juice. Didn’t have any fresh lemons at home so I used bottled concentrated kalamansi juice with honey. Loved the result and reminded me of my grade school days when I used to make fresh guyabano juice for our baon to school.
… and yes, this will also be great with a touch of alcohol ;)
I love Guyabano even if is a juice or directly to eat. I love Guyabano. Even if, the news comes up regards on the anti-cancer thing. I always looking for Guyabano in the market. @_@
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