THE DELICATELY FLAVOURED INDIAN LYCHEE

Good Morning to you,

Do you recognise this little fellow?

No?

How about this?

Still not sure?

Is it on the tip of your tongue, but you can't remember the name?

Well, I think I've teased you enough. It's time for me, 
to introduce you, 
to, 

the 
very
exotic 
Indian Lychee.

Are you as surprised as I was to
 discover the
 name of this fruit?

My only experience of the lychee, was in the late 1960's, when we used to go to our local Chinese restaurant. We loved the restaurant because it was so different. We discovered dishes like Sweet and Sour Pork Balls, Chicken Chop Suey, Crispy Pancake Rolls and Chicken Chow Mein.  Prawn crackers and crispy noodles were a revelation and very shi shi for the time.... and if my memory serves me well, most of these items were not on sale at my local grocers in the early 1970's. I really don't remember noodles or bamboo shoots. I do remember packets of dried food, which included noodles, but I think those new types of food  came a little later.

The dessert selection at the Chinese restaurant was never as exciting as the main courses.... the only dessert I can remember being offered was tinned lychees, swimming in syrup with a spoonful of cream floating in the syrup.  By now, you will be well aware of my sweet tooth, so of course, I had to try the tinned lychees and I have to be perfectly honest, they were awful, so I never ate them again and I never gave them a second thought.

That is, until we visited Natasha in India.  

Natasha had been out and about with George and on their return home, George presented me with what looked like a bunch of flowers.  On closer inspection, I could see they were not flowers, so I asked what they were. That is when Natasha told me they were a fruit, and in actual fact, they were lychees, well, you could have knocked me down with a feather.

Once I got over the surprise, I was excited to see how they tasted. I was keeping my fingers crossed that they tasted nothing like the tinned lychees of so many years ago.   Natasha showed me what to do and once we peeled the outer cases to expose, 

the fruit,

I could see the lychee was the most lovely pearl colour.

Now, let's get down to business, the eating of the lychee.

Within my family

there seems to be two ways to eat a lychee.

Firstly, you peel the fruit and then pop the whole fruit into your mouth and somehow or other, move it around your mouth to remove the fruit from the stone, which is what Gaja and George did.... mmm not my style at all.

Or
secondly
you can adopt my style,
which 
safely 
keeps your teeth in tact.

Using a teaspoon, I scored the fruit from top to bottom and carefully released the fruit from the stone. Yes maybe this technique is a little fiddly, but I feel it is well worth the effort.

Once the stones were removed, we popped each piece of lychee into our mouths and they were delicious. To my surprise I loved the flavour.  It was nothing like those tinned lychees, I had tasted all those years ago, instead, the fresh lychee had the most delicate, almost floral flavour.

....as with the mangoes, because the lychees were in season during our visit to India, we really ate our fill. It was interesting, because the more I ate, the easier it became to de-stone the fruit.... I became quite the expert, although George and Gaja continued with their method and thought I was crazy to go to so much fuss and bother.

..... but that's me, I am not a finger food person. 

Do you remember me telling you, about the very first time I ate a MacDonald's, when Natasha and Danielle were little girls.... I asked for a knife and fork.... yes, I would say that just about sums me up. After all the years, the girls still find it funny, that I asked for a knife and fork to eat a beefburger.

Talking of experiences.

I have to tell you, you have no idea how hard it has been to write the word lychees.... each time I wrote the word, I wanted to add an 'e' at the end. So instead of lychees, I was writing 'lycheese'.... my brain just would not accept that there was not an 'e' on the end of the word.

With a little luck, and lots of proof reading... oh and if you are thinking I could have used spell check.... I did, but it did not recognise the word, I feel sure I have weeded out all those extra e's.

Let me know if you spot one.

So take care and I will see you next week.

This week I will be visiting,

Miz Helen's Country Cottage for Full Plate Thursday

and

Lamberts Lately for Create it Thursday