Bignay

Antidesma bunius · Tropical fruit

40 pairings

Bignay (Antidesma bunius), also called bignai, Chinese laurel, currant tree or salamander tree, is a small tropical fruit borne in long, grape-like clusters on a tree of the Phyllanthaceae family. The tiny berries ripen unevenly from green through cherry-red to a deep blackish-purple, so a single strand carries every colour at once; tart and mildly astringent, they are prized across the Philippines and Southeast Asia for wine, jam and vinegar.

Picking a good onedrag

UnderripeOverripe

Purple-black, firmColoured through and still firm enough to carry home. Sharply sweet-tart: the stage for jelly, for the sour fruit vinegar, and for the deep-red Philippine country wine.Buy it

ColourMostly deep purple-black, a few red berries still mixed in

SqueezeFirm and springy, skin taut, barely marks when pressed

StrandBerries hold on, but come away clean at a light roll

SmellFaint and dark right at the skin, more tart than fruity

Reading a just ripe one. Move the slider and the rest of this page — nutrition, pairings — re-scores with it.

What one gives you

90%

Usable yield

about 0.36 g of skin and pulp · one hard flattened stone, roughly a tenth of the berry, spat out

0.4 g

Typical weight

one specimen

Preparing