Longan / Cats's Eye / Mata Kuching
Source - Wikipedia and photos are taken in our backyard
Dimocarpus longan, commonly known
as the longan is a tropical
tree that produces edible fruit. It is one of the better-known tropical members
of the soap berry family to which the lychee also belongs. It is native to Southern
Asia. It's available easily in Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia.
The longan literally: "Dragon Eye / Cat's eye ", is so named
because it resembles an eyeball when its fruit is shelled (the black seed shows
through the translucent flesh like a pupil/iris). The seed is small, round and
hard, and of an enamel-like, lacquered black. The fully ripened, freshly
harvested shell is bark-like, thin, and firm, making the fruit easy to shell by
squeezing the fruit out as if one is "cracking" a sunflower seed.
The fruit is sweet, juicy and succulent in superior agricultural varieties and, apart from being eaten fresh, is also often used in Asian soups, snacks, desserts, and sweet-and-sour foods, either fresh or dried, sometimes canned with syrup. The taste is different from lychees; while longan have a drier sweetness, lychees are often messily juicy with a more tropical, sour sweetness.
The seed and the shell are not consumed.
