Dried Longan 桂圓

Dried Longan

Before cooked.

After cooked

The reason that I made my own dried longan, is, that the store buy is always very expensive and not all (at least by far I didn't get to find one without the sulfite) but most of them add sulfite as a preservative and antioxidant.

Dried longan is one of my favorite foods since childhood; you can eat them alone or cook with sweet rice and with some brown sugar and a tiny little bit of cooking wine to cook with.

Making your own dried longan, it's not that complicated, only a time consuming job, you can either sun dry or oven dry them, for me, I use a little bit time before the oven reach it's baking temperature, that's say 350 or 400°F and the leftover oven heat. 

If you plan to oven dry them straight, meaning, not doing like me, using the fragmentary times here and there, remember only set the temperature as low as 130-160°F, the temperature and drying length depends upon what kind or thickness of the fruits that you have.