Recipe
Marula juice
- Herb:
- Marula Sclerocarya birrea
- Method:
- Culinary use
- Plant part:
- Fruit
About 30 minBeginnerRecipe science profile
Procedure
- Wash the fruit, pierce the tough skin with a knife and peel it off with your thumb.
- Put the pulp and stones in a bowl, add 500 ml of water and work the stones with your hands to loosen the pulp.
- Remove the stones, strain the liquid through a coarse sieve and top up with water to a pleasant tartness; sweeten to taste.
- Chill and drink within two days; leftover pulp can be cooked into jam or left to ferment into traditional marula beer.
Extraction
- Herb:
- 1 kg of ripe marula fruit for about 1 l of juice
- Solvent:
- water; squeeze the pulp out of the skin by hand and dilute
- Shelf life:
- 2 days in the fridge; freeze for longer storage
- Target compounds:
- vitamin C, sugars and organic acids from the pulp; the white flesh clings firmly to the stone
Notes
A kitchen recipe from southern Africa. Gather fruit that has fallen, yellow and soft — on the tree it is still astringent. People allergic to the cashew family (mango, cashew) take care.
Why it works
Marula pulp holds, per the review by Mariod & Abdelwahab 2012, several times the vitamin C of an orange (the literature quotes 68–200 mg per 100 g), plus sugars and organic acids that give the juice its tart taste; short processing without boiling preserves the vitamin C. The review by Ojewole 2010 reports anti-inflammatory and antidiabetic data from the laboratory and animals for bark and leaves — not for the juice, which is a food.
Literature
- Mariod AA, Abdelwahab SI (2012): Sclerocarya birrea (Marula), An African Tree of Nutritional and Medicinal Uses: A Review. Food Reviews International 28(4):375–388 — Review of the nutritional composition of fruits, kernels and oil.
Related
Marula — Herb card
Culinary use — Processing method detail