Ingredient

Lychee

The gap between a fresh lychee and a tinned one is wider than for almost any other fruit. Fresh, it is floral, perfumed and slightly resinous with a firm, grape-like snap. Tinned, it is sweet syrup with a soft texture and very little of the aroma left.

What the aroma is

Lychee smells of roses, and that is not a poetic reach — the fruit shares aromatic compounds with rose, including some of the same terpene alcohols. This is why rose and lychee is such a natural pairing and why lychee turns up in perfumery.

Those compounds are volatile, which is exactly why canning destroys them. Heat drives them off and the syrup replaces them with sugar.

Fresh lychees also lose aroma quickly after picking, which is why refrigerated fresh fruit flown in is markedly better than fruit that has sat at room temperature in a shop.

Choosing and keeping

Skin colour

Pink to red is good. Brown all over means old, and the aroma will have gone. Some browning at the stem is normal.

Firmness

Should give slightly under pressure but not be soft. Rock hard is under-ripe; squashy is fermenting.

Weight

Heavy for size. The stone varies in size between varieties and a small stone means more flesh.

Keeping

In the fridge in a bag, about a week. They dry out and brown quickly at room temperature.

Freezing

Whole and unpeeled, and they are excellent frozen — a sort of natural sorbet eaten half-thawed.

Peeling and stoning

1. Nick the skin at the stem end with a thumbnail or a small knife.
2. The shell is brittle and cracks readily. Peel it away in pieces; it comes off in seconds once started.
3. Squeeze gently and the stone can often be pushed out at the stem end, leaving the fruit whole.
4. Otherwise cut around the stone with a small knife and lift it out.
5. Work over a bowl. Lychees release a lot of juice and it is worth keeping.

What to do with them

• Eaten as they are, cold, which is what they are for.
• With rose water and a little sugar, which amplifies the aroma already in the fruit.
• In a sorbet or granita, where the perfume survives because nothing is heated.
• Stuffed with a raspberry, an old restaurant trick that works because the sharpness completes the fruit.
• In a Thai or Vietnamese salad with chilli, lime and prawns.
• In a drink — muddled, or as a purée, where the aroma carries very well.
• Frozen whole and eaten semi-thawed, which is the easiest thing to do with a large box.

Lychee, rambutan and longan

Three closely related fruits sold side by side and constantly confused. The flesh is similar; the differences are real.

Lychee

Rough red-pink shell, sharply perfumed, the most floral of the three and the most acidic.

Rambutan

Hairy red shell, milder and sweeter, with flesh that clings more stubbornly to the stone.

Longan

Smooth tan shell, smaller, and the least perfumed — sweet and slightly musky rather than floral.

Interchangeable in a fruit salad

And not in a dessert built around the aroma, where only lychee carries it.

Tinned lychees

Sweet, soft and heavily perfumed by the syrup. Useful, and not the same fruit.

Dried longan

A different ingredient again — dark, raisin-like, and used in Chinese soups and tonics.

Common questions