Yuzu

Some time back we had some friends over for dinner and one of them, Claudia, brought us a gift box with some yuzu fruit she grows at her home. I'd never seen yuzu before, or even heard of it. So I went to 1001 Foods You Must Taste Before You Die and found it included there (p. 105). 1001 notes that yuzu is about the size of a mandarin and the most cold resistant of all citrus fruits. It grows wild in Korea and Tibet, but is associated more with Japan where it was introduced more than 1,000 years ago. Some believe it is a hybrid of the mandarin. 

Box of yuzu

Yuzu has an amazingly fragrant peel and is often added at the last minute to soups, salads and simmered dishes. Ponzu sauce is often made with yuzu juice. The juice is quite tart, resembling the grapefruit somewhat, with hints of mandarin. 

Inside of the yuzu. Quite tart and with lots of seeds.

Judy made a bundt cake using the yuzu zest and the yuzu aroma was still quite pronounced after the cake was cooked. 

Yuzu being grated for zest.

Yuzu zest in the batter.

Bundt cake

Inside of bundt cake that carried the yuzu fragrance.

Claudia has quite a green thumb and grows a number of fruits I've never heard of. She is also very artistic. The box she brought the yuzu in also had some keffir limes and it was decorated with an ostrich feather, what look like quail feathers, and a beautiful white flower and red berries. 

Beautiful gift box.

Yuzu and keffir lime.