Jujube ✦

Jujube

What it is

Grown in northern China for some four thousand years and bred into hundreds of cultivars, it gave its name to the jujube of the sweet counter — the confection kept the word long after the fruit left the recipe. Fresh, it eats like a small crisp apple; dried, it turns dense and mahogany and behaves like a date.

In the kitchen

Dried, it belongs in the pot rather than the bowl: two or three will sweeten a chicken stock or a braise over an hour without turning it syrupy. Slit each one down the side first — left whole, they give up almost nothing.

Goes with

Ginger Chicken Goji berry Cinnamon Honey Pork Star anise Shaoxing wine

Same species

Sidr honey

Also used with

Baek-kimchi Bamboo fungus Cordyceps flower Edible bird’s nest Job's tears Korean pine nut

In season alongside

Greengage Mirabelle Persimmon Arbutus berry Bell pepper Black Krim tomato

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