Stuffed Lychee

Ok, y’all are incredibly split on lychee this week in terms of exposure. I’ve had people tell me they absolutely love lychees and would eat them all the time whereas the other half are stunned that this exists and had no clue where to even begin to look for them. I fell into the last category but it really goes to show the differences in what people have had.

So I didn’t just want to throw lychee into something like a drink or smoothie because I was worried that it may get drowned out because the flavor isn’t too strong. I started coming across several recipes for stuffed lychee, which is apparently a big deal in Hawaii. It’s a popular dessert where they use crystallized ginger and sherry in making it but I picked the easier one which is available to peruse here.

I’ll straight up tell you though you need lychees, cream cheese with some lemon juice mixed in and macadamia nuts and all of that seems to scream Hawaii and I’ve never been there so I may or may not need correcting in my perception of Hawaiian foods (you may have to replace cream cheese with Spam).

What I failed to notice in all of the recipes I looked up is that they used can lychees which may also explain some of the exposure others have had as well, but I imagine the canned ones come sans pit. I looked up several how to guides to figure out an easy way to get them out and they all insist I just dig in with my fingernail and root it out essentially.

Ok, so my fingers are actually sausages and I destroyed like five before realizing they had no idea what they were doing so I had to carefully slide a knife in between the seed and the flesh after peeling and twist the seed out. I tried to stuff some that had a flap on the side but they just didn’t hold up too well.

Salt is exactly what these needed. There is a whole roasted macadamia underneath that swirl of cream cheese and they both really complemented the sweet and tart flavors of the lychee. If these weren’t so labor intensive to get ready to fill I would have made way more, but I highly recommend you eat lychee this way. Hawaii knows how to handle a weird little grape.