Nhút or nhút mít is a name of a preserved food made of mainly jackfruits simply done by salting. This food is best known in Thanh Chương district, Nghệ An province (in the northern part of Central Vietnam), so the name of this food is also known as Nhút Thanh Chương.
The process of this salted jackfruit food is similar to pickling, however it’s not done with briny water but just plain salt. The main ingredients are jackfruits rags or green jackfruits, other extra ingredients can be banana blossoms and bamboo shoots. The ingredients are sliced or shredded into small pieces and salted for several days before the food is ready to be served.
The best jackfruit for this food is one with friable texture, so the final product will not be so chewy (Such jackfruit cultivar is called mít bở in Vietnamese.) Green jackfruits are common in commercial nhút, but those fruits should not be too young because the jackfruit latex is too sticky.
Nhút can be eaten as a side dish, or can be used as a quick salad ingredients (together with pork or shrimps), stir fry dish (with pork belly) or a soup ingredient (with some fish like snakehead fish, grass carp or black carp).
Use a big vegetable peeler or a knife to "peel" off the out spiky skin of the jackfruit. Rinse the peeled jackfruit under running water to remove excess latex.
Use a jullienne peeler or a vegetable shredder to shred the whole green jackfruit into small long thin pieces. Discard the core.
Soak the jackfruit shreds into rice-rinsing water to remove the latex of the jackfruit and retain the whiteness of the jackfruit shreds. (Alternately, you can sun-dry the jackfruits shreds for 1-2 hours, but you will need to add boiled water in the next step.)
In a bowl, toss jackfruit shreds with coarse salt with your saltiness preferences. In a jar, add a layer of salted jackfruit and a thin layer of minced garlic, lemongrass, kumquat peels, and some chili slices. Repeat the process for the rest of the ingredients. Finally add a plastic cover (not the jar lid) over the ingredients, and place a heavy object on the plastic cover. Seal the jar with its lid.
Some people skip the soaking process, but they sundry the jackfruit shreds. In this case, they will add some boiled water to submerge the jackfruit shreds in the pickling process.
The salted jackfruit is ready after 5-7 days.
Serving basic salted jackfruit salad: Wear a kitchen glove to squeeze some salted jackfruit then place on a salad bowl, add cooked sliced pork belly (and cooked shrimps), with some chopped herbs, crushed roasted peanuts, some chopped garlic and chili. Toss all the ingredients up and wait for 5 mins.