Rambutan

Snip or score the hairy skin around its middle with a small knife, without cutting deeply into the flesh. Twist the halves apart and lift out the white fruit; remove the hard seed before eating.

Choose fruit with plump, firm flesh and skin that is mostly red; the soft spines may be green-tipped. Avoid fruit with dry, darkened spines or skin that is badly shrivelled.

Keep them in a breathable bag in the fridge and eat them within a few days, as the skin dries out quickly. For the best flavour, let chilled fruit come towards room temperature before eating.

The flesh is eaten and the hard seed is usually discarded. Don’t eat the seed raw; remove it before serving rambutan, especially to children.

Add peeled, seeded fruit to a fruit salad, or serve it with yoghurt or coconut-based desserts. Canned rambutan is often stuffed with pineapple and served chilled in syrup.

Yes. Add peeled, seeded rambutan near the end of cooking a mild curry or stir-fry so it warms through without breaking down; its sweet-tart flavour works well with chilli and coconut.

No, though they are close relatives with similar translucent flesh and a single large seed. Rambutan has a distinctive hairy skin, while lychee has a bumpy, usually red shell; their flavours are similar, but rambutan is often milder.

Both have translucent flesh around one large seed, but rambutan is covered in soft spines and longan has a smooth, tan shell. Longan has 84 mg of vitamin C per 100 g; rambutan has 1 g of protein per 100 g.