A-Z Ingredient Guide: Elephant Apple – The Gentle Giant Fruit You Need To Know About

Elephant Apple isn’t exactly the kind of fruit you can order on quick commerce stores or even find at your local fruit market. Yet, for a large population along India’s Eastern coast, the ingredient has been known to signify certain dishes and even occasions where it's cooked as an offering. 

This is a fruit with a deep connection to India’s tribal cuisine and its inherited wealth, yet it hardly finds a mention outside of Eastern India. Elephant Apple is one of those rare ingredients that carries the soul of India’s monsoon kitchens. Its flavour sits beautifully between citrus and green mango, but with a wild, floral sharpness that instantly transforms a dish.

Chef Stanley Coelho, Executive Chef, Moxy Bengaluru Airport Prestige Tech Cloud, says, “For me, it’s a memory, a story, and a bridge between traditional cooking and modern creativity. Whenever I use Elephant Apple, I feel like I’m honouring an ingredient that deserves far more spotlight in contemporary cuisine.”

Nishant Chaubey, chef consultant and author of the culinary bookStay With Indus, has nostalgia in his voice as he speaks about elephant apple. “My earliest memory of elephant apple, known as chalta or ouu in Eastern India, goes back to my childhood in Jharkhand. I remember the sharp, citrusy aroma that filled the kitchen when my mother and local tribal families cooked it during monsoons. We often prepared duck with elephant apple, as its sturdy texture and sweet meat pair beautifully with the fruit’s sharp sourness. It was bold, tangy, and unforgettable, one of those flavours that truly defines the forests and villages of our region,” he says and adds, “Elephant apple is one of India’s most under-celebrated forest foods. Tribes have used it for centuries, but it still hasn’t found its rightful place in mainstream cuisine.” Collaborating on the connection, Poorvi Sonigara, Junior Naturalist, Bori Safari Lodge, draws parallels with the wood apple, which some tribes use to cure digestive troubles and skin issues.

Elephant Apple 101

One of the reasons for this, apart from availability and knowledge about the fruit, is the hardy texture of the fruit itself. Named after elephants who love the fruit and are able to eat and digest it, the fruit is actually quite tough to prepare. 

It is found in two variations across Eastern India, one with four petals and another bigger version with six petals on the fruit. The centre of the fruit is slimy and unedible, but villages still use it as a shampoo in some parts of the country. The petals of the fruit need to be scraped until a thin film is visible, which is also not cooked and needs to be removed. As it’s a hard fruit, slicing it open with conventional chef knives is also a difficult process, with village elders using panikhi, a traditional cutting board with a wooden stand. 

Chef Chaubey remembers his most memorable dish made with the ingredient. “My favourite is a smoked elephant apple and red chilli chutney I learned while working with tribal communities in Jharkhand. It captures fire, forest, and fruit in a single bite, rustic yet incredibly sophisticated.”

Fruit Rituals 

Dishes made using elephant apple often take the form of accompaniments such as pickles and chutneys, but for certain festivities, it can also don main character energy. 

During the Hindu calendar month of Karthik, believers in East India abstain from eating non-vegetarian food for the entire month. During this period, one common dish paired with rice every Monday consists of a sattvic dal made with whole yellow moong dal along with vegetables such as Colocasia, raw banana and elephant apple and sliced ginger for spice.  

Rachit Kirteeman, chef consultant and host of The Odisha Table popups at restaurants across India, says that elephant apples are cut into wedges and added to bring natural sourness to the dal and also thicken its consistency, thanks to the fruit’s natural enzymes. “The entire dish is quite wholesome in flavour, packs in nutrients and is white in colour because there’s no turmeric added in,” he adds. 

Continuing from Karthik month onwards, which usually also signals the arrival of winter, elephant apple is eaten almost every day until Makar Sankranti in January as the fruit is known to fight off cold, thanks in part due to its high Vitamin C content. 

Other parts of the elephant apple tree are also used in some ceremonies. For example, during the festival of Prathamastami, which is celebrated in Odisha to bestow prosperity to a child when they complete their first year, elephant apple leaves are often boiled and used in the preparation of steamed turmeric rice balls that are fed to the child as part of the ritual. The leaves are also used as a plate since turmeric leaves can be in short supply to carry the rice balls. 

Getting It Out There 

Most chefs who’ve worked with the ingredient seem smitten with the fruit and are all doing their bit to make it more popular. Chef Kirteeman has used elephant apple at every restaurant popup of The Odisha Table over the last five years. “I always get a few curious customers who want to know more about elephant apple, and I’m more than happy to share its story.”

“As a chef today, I still reach for Elephant Apple when I want clean acidity without harshness, bright aromatic sourness and depth for coastal, eastern, or Southeast Asian dishes,” Chef Coelho adds. 

Chef Chaubey says elephant apple carries cultural depth, biodiversity value, and a rich culinary history and is on a personal mission to explore it further and present it in ways that appeal to a wider audience, showcasing its true versatility.

“Elephant apple brings a beautiful texture and a sour-savoury intensity that can anchor vegetarian dishes. For diners open to bold, unfamiliar flavours, elephant apple can be a wonderful gateway ingredient. Its fibre structure and tang make it excellent for stews, grills, and braised dishes. It can be used in fermented pastes, gourmet sauces, glazes, cocktails, vegan broths, and even desserts. Its versatility makes it ideal for progressive Indian restaurants. I’d especially like to see it used as a natural souring agent in plant-based cooking,” he says. 

Chef Niyati Rao, who runs the ingredient-forward restaurant Ekaa in Mumbai, first found out about elephant apples last year during a pop-up at the restaurant with partners Maharajkumari Mrinalika and Akshita M Bhanj Deo, the 48th generation of the Bhanj Dynasty and custodians of The Belgadia Palace last year. Rao says she is enamoured by the fruit’s texture and had made a soup course where she substituted lemon juice for elephant apple and also used it as a chutney in one of the main courses with mushrooms. She hasn’t stopped thinking about other ways to use the ingredient since then.

“I want to make a sorbet out of it and see how it turns out. I’ve also thought of making a dressing out of it and adding it to meat and seafood dishes, but the one thing I want to do is char the entire fruit and see what flavour it imparts,” she says. 

While there’s time for elephant apple to become more popular, chefs are keen for it to reach more diners soon, especially because the ingredient represents history, tradition and ancient cooking methods all wrapped in its fibrous underbelly. As Chef Chaubey says, “Elephant apple is more than just an ingredient; it is a reminder of India’s deep connection with its forests and indigenous wisdom. As chefs, we must champion such local treasures and bring them to the forefront of modern dining while supporting the communities that preserve these traditions.”