Panneer Fruit or Rose apple

On my trip to my favorite veggie market four -five days back, I found these beauties. 

This shop has lots of fruits and veggies which are quite seasonal and also from other parts of the world too. I have not seen this fruit before with such a beautiful color and shape, intrigued, asked the salesman. This was called Panneer fruit, and it came from Ooty or Kodaikanal. He also added that it would taste like gooseberries (the sour ones). I got 4 or 5 thinking to taste. As soon as we reached home, both me and my husband attacked the bag, washed and tried. Amazingly tasty. You could taste mild flavor of gooseberries  and at the end gave a typical taste of Jamun fruit and the flesh was white in color. The initial mild tartness was definitely enjoyable, but I loved the typical jamun flavor at the end. We loved it and went yesterday to bag more of these. These are delicate and bruise easily. For the eye, I feel it is a feast to see this fruit. I mean look at the shape - bell shaped - it is just like the kozhukattai (that we do for Ganesh Chathurthi) and also the pretty color. Anybody would immediately makeup their mind to try this fruit.

I considered myself lucky to eat it and googled to know more about it. Its scientific name is Syzygium jambos, a member of Myrtaceae family. It is called Rose apple in English. The local names here include Malabar apple, Jambrosade, Water apple". It is native to Southeast Asia, but introduced in all continents except Antartica. The trees in tropical conditions only bear fruit. The fruit is a good source of vitamin C (source Wikipedia). The fruit is considered good for, brain liver and blood and it has a low glycemic index. If you eat too much, you can feel itchiness in throat, similar to gooseberry. Healthbenefitstimes gives a good history and uses of this fruit tree. 

It was definitely worth tasting.