"Dragon's Eye" - tasty and useful exotic

Litchi is a very delicious exotic fruit originally from China, also called Chinese plum. Another nickname - "the eye of the dragon" - the fruit has earned because of a specific form. Cut the fruit into two halves, you will see a white flesh with a black bone in the middle, which is very similar to the dragon's eye.

Description of the plant

This evergreen plant grows in the tropics and subtropics. The leaf plates are narrow and elongated with slightly wavy margins. Flowers are small, collected in panicles. A small bunch of fruit is collected in each panicle, usually 3-15 berries. In nature, there are more than a hundred species of litchi. The most valuable are small-seeded varieties, which are mistakenly called seedless. For the normal development of the fruit, the "eye of the dragon" must be pollinated. There is a generally accepted opinion that it is impossible to deduce an absolutely seedless variety of lychee.

Trees can reach a considerable height - 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 period of growth. Fruit-bearing the plant begins on the fourth to the tenth year of life, depending on the variety and origin.

When the fruit ripens, 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 useful properties

Long since the Indians esteemed this fruit as a powerful aphrodisiac. There is even a saying that says: "One berry - three torches" (the torch is used in the context of time - one torch is approximately equal to half an hour).

The fruit "eye of the dragon" contains 80% of the liquid, it is rich in vitamins and trace elements, such as magnesium, calcium, potassium. Depending on the variety, lychee contains 6 to 18 percent of sugar. Also in this fruit contains a lot of nicotinic acid, which dilates blood vessels, improves blood circulation. In fact, Lychee takes first place in the world in terms of its content (0.53 mg per 100 g), the second place in this rating is behind 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, carbonated drinks, and also consume it in a can. Sometimes caring Chinese grandmothers feed their grandchildren before dumping pies filled with fruit "dragon eye". In addition, this fruit is perfectly combined with fish dishes and is used in the preparation of sauces for meat.

• How to choose? Try to make the fruit red - overripe lychees have a burgundy hue, and immature - yellow.
• How to store? Not more than three days at room temperature. But if the fruit, after cleaning, put in a freezer, then it can be stored for more than two months.
• How to cook? Of course, there are just a lot of ways to make this fruit, but it's best to eat it fresh. The "eye of the dragon" contains a lot of pectin, so you can make jelly from it. If you want the fruit to retain the maximum number of its useful properties, do not heat it to more than 60 degrees Celsius.