Lychee is a delicious exotic fruit native to China, also called Chinese plum. His other nickname - “Dragon's Eye” - the fruit earned due to its specific shape. Cutting the fruit into two halves, you will see a white pulp with a black bone in the middle, which is very similar to a dragon's eye.
Plant description
This evergreen plant grows in the tropics and subtropics. Leaf blades are narrow and elongated with slightly wavy edges. The flowers are small, collected in panicles. In each panicle a small bunch of fruits gathers, usually 3-15 berries. In nature, there are more than a hundred species of lychee. The most valuable are small-seeded varieties, which are mistakenly called seedless. For the normal development of the fruit, the "dragon's eye" must be pollinated. There is a generally accepted opinion that it is impossible to produce a completely seedless variety of lychee.
Trees can reach considerable heights - above twenty meters, although they grow very slowly. The yield of each individual tree increases during the first twenty years of life in connection with the growth period. The plant begins to bear fruit in the fourth to tenth year of life, depending on the variety and origin.
When the fruits ripen, they are simply cut from the tree right along with the stem part. This method of harvesting spares the tree as much as possible and does not prevent it from actively bearing fruit in the next season.
"Dragon's Eye" and its beneficial properties
Since ancient times, Indians revered this fruit as a powerful aphrodisiac. There is even a saying that says: “One berry - three torches” (a torch is used in the context of time - one torch is approximately equal to half an hour).
The Dragon Eye fruit contains 80% liquid, it is rich in vitamins and minerals such as magnesium, calcium, potassium. Depending on the variety, lychee contains from 6 to 18 percent sugar. Also in this fruit contains a lot of nicotinic acid, which dilates blood vessels, improves blood circulation. In fact, lychee takes the first place in the world in its content (0.53 mg per 100 g), the second place in this rating is for apples (0.23 mg), followed by pears (0.15 mg).
Have you tried the dragon's eye?
At home, lychee is very popular - it makes traditional Chinese wine, juices, sodas, and canned foods. Sometimes caring Chinese grandmothers feed their grandchildren to the dump with pies stuffed with dragon eye fruit. In addition, this fruit goes well with fish dishes and is used in the preparation of meat sauces.
- How to choose? Try to make the fruit red - overripe lychees have a burgundy hue, and unripe ones - yellow.
- How to store? Not more than three days at room temperature. But if the fruit, after peeling, put in the freezer, then it can be stored for more than two months.
- How to cook? Of course, the methods for preparing this fruit are just a lot, but it is best to use it fresh. "Dragon's Eye" contains a lot of pectin, so you can make jelly from it. If you want the fruit to preserve the maximum amount of its beneficial properties during cooking, then do not heat it to more than 60 degrees Celsius.