Umbra Juice with Sour Plum

Umbra, amra or kedondong, it's the same fruit. In Perak, few years back, umbra juice fad came on. It was so popular. If u drink this at a food court or Chinese eateries, it is much greener and taste more concentrated, simply because the fruit is juiced whole, skin and seed on. I never knew they were done this way until the lady at my daily lunch place told me so. I initially thought colouring was added. :)  Then I asked the lady again how could it be done since the seed is so hard. She told me that those currently in the market are new varieties with smaller less fibrous softer seeds.

This fruit reminded me much of my primary school life. It's 10sen per portion. The canteen lady will put a few pieces of this cut up fruit onto a piece of plastic and drizzle it with chilli sweet soy sauce. Sweet, sour, hot, salty... yummy. And it's not a daily treat, the canteen only sells this once a blue moon, so when they do, my friends and I will be joining the queue to buy our 10sen portion. Actually, my favourite part of the fruit is the seed. I'll eat up the flesh parts quickly and save the seed for the last. It looks like a fuzzy alien. Spiky fibres and hard. Not like a peach seed, but reallly like a medusa head. I like chewing on the spikes, the pain I get when it massages my gums is addictive. Makes my saliva flow and flow.

Recently during one of my weekly Jusco trips, I saw these fruits for sale. RM2/kg. Every bag was almost 1.5kg. I chose the bag with the greenest fruits. Well, these fruits tend to have the ugly skin cos they were exposed to grow, just like local mangoes. So many, what to do except to juice them. The skins are not smooth and green, so I can't make myself to juice them whole. Do what u think suits u.

To make the umbra juice taste better, I added in sour plums from China. I am quite particular to the quality of sour plums. Inferior ones from neighbouring country makes me want to puke the moment it comes near my lips. Infuse the sour plums in hot water before use to have full release of flavour. This is not a juicy fruit, so u have to juice it with some liquid,and the sour plum infusion is just the right thing to use. 1 large soup plum is enough for 1 glass of juice.Sweeten with sugar syrup.