How to Cut Papayas

Video Transcript

"My next tip is cutting beautiful papayas. Papayas are usually from Hawaii, so when you choose the fruit, look for one that's got some golden yellow color and has a little bit of give to it. Now I find the easiest way to cut this fruit is to first lop off the ends so you have a starting point. Put your reserve in your mulching pot and use a vegetable peeler. You take the peeler and simply peel all the way around to expose the fruit. And I like to give a couple of peels just to get rid of the rind. The rinds and the flavors right next to it are not as fantastic as the beautiful fruit inside of it and it goes fairly quickly. Especially if you get a fairly firm one and you're not going to lose it in your hand as you're doing task. Another tip; when you buy a papaya that's not quite terribly ripe you can always put it in a paper bag for a day or two and it tends to ripen awfully quickly. I find that is the best way for a lot of the fruit that you buy. If it's not quite green yet a paper bag loosely closed in room temperature, maybe on your kitchen counter, can offer a really quick ripening ground. Okay, again I'm going to save the mulch, I'm going to take my nice sharp chef's knife and I'm going to cut right down the center and expose these gorgeous seeds. I'm going to take a spoon and I'm just going to scrape away these little seeds, just like this. Here I'll do it here so you can see. Just scrape them away and get rid of some of the membrane that wants to cling to it and you expose this nice little boat. Now these boats are a great way to display say a chicken salad, a curry chicken salad or tuna salad or something like that if you've got a tropical theme going. Alright. Then with my handy chef's knife, I'm going to take the fruit and I'm going to turn it upside down and I'm going to cut it into sections. About the same size so it's consistent. Alright? Then I'm going to take the fruit and just cut nice chunks. So that when you're done with them, they look about the same. This one's really juicy so that means you have to taste it. If it's not perfect, that gives you permission to taste your food. It's very delicious. Catering 101. "