Dried Longan Taste Reviews and Cooking Guides
Table of Contents
Top Best Dried Longan Based on Reviews and Price
Why Dried Longan Is Popular In Chinese Cuisines?
The Chinese have earned a reputation for incorporating herbs into a lot of dishes. Despite coming with little culinary advantage, Dried Longan, like every other herb, is added in Chinese soups, tea, or even deserts. Their medicinal benefits are well known, but only a few people know that dried Longan fruits are the tastiest herb around.
Most users have likened its taste to that of chocolate, but a like-to-like comparison will be with fruit candy. It leaves this yummy taste that few fruits can offer. Hence, Longan fruits aren’t just popular in Chinese dishes for their medicinal benefits, but for the yumminess, they add to dishes. They’re too tasty to remain in herbal drinks, which explains why they’re used in soups.
What Does Dried Longan Taste Like?
There are different species of longan fruit, but the difference between their tastes isn’t much. Basically, all longan fruits have a fresh and delightful taste that tends to stick for long. You may experience an after taste like that of caramel or sugar syrup after taking this fruit. In terms of texture, longan is watery like lychees and has a consistent texture that’s a cross between chewy and tender.
While they’re mistaken for lychee, it should be known there are a lot of differences between these fruits in terms of their taste and appearance. Longan fruits have more flesh than lychee; hence, you have a lot to chew on.
Dried Longan isn’t as tasty and creamy as the fresh ones. It comes with black flesh rather than white, and the taste is similar to chocolate but not as good. The taste of dried Longan is acquired from the fresh ones but has a stronger flavor, which is why they’re more favored.
There’s a slight difference between the taste of fresh and dried Longan. The taste of fresh longan is mild like grape or kaki. Its sweetness isn’t accompanied by a unique taste like in the case of orange or pineapple. The flavor of Longan fruit is quite pleasant to our taste bud and knowing its medicinal benefits; you can’t help but ask for more.
How to Use Dried Longan in Chinese Cuisines?
Whatever you decide to use this fruit for, it’s better to soak in water for a few hours before adding to any dish. Dried Longan fruit, as the name suggests, can easily get hard and also come with small seeds. I advise you hydrate for 30 minutes before slicing into halves. This way, it’s easy for it to acquire some flavor when used in soups.
Baked Logan Fruits
Lychees are more delicious when used in preparing soup than Longan fruits. However, dried Longan fruits are tastier than the former when baked. When it’s baked in an oven, dried Longan fruit has a translucent sweet smell like that of candy but chewy.
All you need when preparing this dish is to separate the fruit from the outer coating. It’s possible to use fresh Longan fruits rather than the dried ones, but the results will be different. Cooking the fresh version in an oven merely dries the moisture; only the dried ones can be baked.
Red Date Logan Tea
When it comes to preparing dried Longan tea, the ingredients are not static. The red date tea, for Instance, has dried Longan and red dates as its primary ingredient. Since dried Longans are naturally sweet, the amount of sugar used in this tea is quite low. Apart from the two must-have ingredients, you can add ginger or wolfberries to balance things up.
However, precautions must be taken when consuming this tea due to it’s heaty nature. According to the Chinese, excess consumption of heaty food can make people sick, which is why they should be consumed moderately.
In the case of Red date tea, the seed of the dates should be removed while dried Longans should be used sparingly. However, if you find the drink not as sweet as you want, you can supplement it with brown sugar.
Snow Fungus Soup
Longan and snow fungus soup is a very popular Chinese soup. The presence of dried Longan makes it refreshing and can be served hot during cold weather. It’s also served chill during the summer but can double-up as a dessert. All the ingredients used in the soup adds a lot of sweetness, making it a healthy option as you steer clear of artificial sweeteners.
However, if you can’t stand the sweetness of the soup, you can add a hot spice like ginger to add another dimension to the dish.
Is Dried Longan Healthy?
Dried Longan is probably the healthiest fruit in China. None of its parts is a waste. From the flower to the seeds, all has its medicinal benefits. Long before its culinary advantage was discovered, dried Longan was used as a treatment for insomnia. It’s believed that the seed in Longan fruits can revitalize the heart and aid against depression. A move that is seen to induce sleep.
Longan seed is the most effective part of this plant when it comes to its medicinal benefits. According to the clinical studies, the seeds contain a substance known as corilagin, a chemical that regulates blood pressure levels in mammals.
Moving to its flower, you will find some extracts which improve insulin resistance and boost antioxidant defense against high blood pressure. In addition to that, Longan fruits are part of the combination of traditional Chinese medicines used in treating blood-related diseases like Anemia.
Finally, Longan leaves can somehow treat gouts. It’s suggested that the substance present in the leaves of this plant is similar to the component of most gout medication.
Conclusion
When preparing any dish with dried Longan, it’s important to take the sweetness of the dish into consideration. Excess consumption may impair your health; hence, they should only be used sparingly.
The sweetness of this fruit can easily turn drab if not properly utilized. It’s recommended you pair its sweet taste with spices like ginger or wolfberries when making tea.
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