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Yuzu


Sararwelch

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I went to a produce market over the weekend that had a selection of fresh yuzu. Yellow and green were available, and they were about the size of a lime. I picked out a yellow one, and when I went to pay, they didn't charge me for it because they said it didn't have any juice. When I got home and juiced it, they were right, it literally didn't have any juice!

Has anyone ever seen this before? I'm going back there at the end of this week - should I try again? Maybe buy a green one this time?

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The juice is also used in ponzu sauce, but traditionally the yuzu is prized for it's zest as Dick said.

Don't know what to tell you, maybe go try again. The juice isn't great anyways, just out of curiosity what are you yuzing it for?

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If they don't hold very much juice, then how do they sell bottles of the juice by itself? Is that the main reason why it cost so much?

"cuisine is the greatest form of art to touch a human's instinct" - chairman kaga

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I'm pretty sure that yellow (mature) yuzu have juice in them. I have made chu-hai (yuzu juice + shochu) and an instant ponzu-like dressing from fresh yuzu before.

Some inferior citrus fruits are almost juiceless, right?

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Not all yuzu are juiceless. I am not sure if there are different types or they are just older fruit. I have on occasion purchased yuzu that were juiceless. Even a normal yuzu won't have the amount of juice you will get from a lemon or lime though and they often have more seeds than flesh.

The only thing you can do is feel them, the heavier they are the more likely they are to have juice.

Kristin Wagner, aka "torakris"

 

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It's possible that they're old. I wouldn't think there would be a high rate of turnover on yuzu. I don't even think I got 1/16 of a teaspoon out of the one from last week.

I am going back to this produce market tomorrow - if they have more, I'll buy one that feels heavy and report back.

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I never juice a fresh yuzu and never use bottled yuzu products. I only use the zest for sashimi and other garnishes. I don't know what is actually in those bottles but I suspect its very little yuzu.-Dick

the ingredients are listed in english as: "citron juice", but in japanese as "yuzu no sui"

this could be a mistranslation as the japanese clearly says yuzu juice. citron is a different animal. however, based on flavor alone, i'm pretty confident it is yuzu juice. there are bottles that are sold that have salt added to them. i wouldn't buy that variety because i'm sure the salt is added as a preservative.

based on the cost of the small bottles of juice that i do buy, i think it is actually yuzu juice. and relatively decent yuzu juice, at that.

i use it to flavor desserts.

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:laugh: i love the pile of seeds in your colander...and then looking at the already juiced halves of the yuzu, there are still tons of seeds inside of them! :shock:

hiroyuki, do you know if the little bottles of yuzu juice are, in fact, yuzu juice even though the english translation is citron?

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:laugh: i love the pile of seeds in your colander...and then looking at the already juiced halves of the yuzu, there are still tons of seeds inside of them!  :shock:

hiroyuki, do you know if the little bottles of yuzu juice are, in fact, yuzu juice even though the english translation is citron?

I have no idea, but suppose it's a product of Japan, and the product name contains the word yuzu (柚子 in Chinese characters or ゆず in Japanese phonetic characters), then it must have a certain percentage of real yuzu juice. (Otherwise it's illegal.)

I checked the label of my store-bought ponzu; it only says "citrus juice" (かんきつ果汁 in Japanese).

Generally speaking, the Japanese word "juice" (ジュース, loan word from English) is quite ambigous. It may mean just "drink". The word "kajuu" (果汁) is less ambigous; it probably means 100% juice or a high percentage of juice plus some other ingredients such as sugar and honey.

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