Preserved Jujube

Preserved jujube belongs to the category of preserved fruits. It has a well-balanced flavor blending sugar, acid, spices and salt, tasting sweet and sour, with a rich aroma and a long-lasting aftertaste.

Process flow: material selection → peeling → salting → desalting → sugar soaking → drying → packaging.

Main technical points:

① Material selection. Choose varieties with large fruit, small pits and thick flesh; remove diseased, insect-damaged and bruised fruit; grade into 3 grades: large, medium and small.

② Peeling. Pour fresh jujubes into a boiling 5% sodium hydroxide solution, boil for about 30 seconds, remove, drain off the alkali liquor, put into cold water, quickly rub and scrub to remove the jujube skin completely, then rinse clean with clear water.

③ Salting. For 100 kg of fresh jujubes, use 10 kg of salt, placing one layer of jujubes and one layer of salt, curing in a cement tank, with a heavy object pressed on top to prevent the jujubes from floating above the liquid surface. After about 15 days, take them out and sun-dry. To increase crispness, add 0.2% alum or 0.3% quicklime relative to the amount of jujubes.

④ Desalting. Rinse the jujube blanks in a flowing-water trough for 2 days to remove most of the salt, then sun-dry until half-dry.

⑤ Sugar soaking. Use 5 kg of licorice and 0.4 kg of cassia bark, add 60 kg of clear water and boil, concentrate to about 50 kg, clarify and filter to make licorice liquid. Take half of the licorice liquid, add 20 kg of sugar and 120 g of saccharin, dissolve to make licorice sugar liquid. Soak 100 kg of jujube blanks in this hot licorice sugar liquid; after 12 hours, take them out, sun-dry until half-dry, then return them to a container. Add the other half of the licorice liquid to the licorice sugar liquid that has not been fully absorbed, and additionally add 3-5 kg of sugar, 20 g of saccharin, 100 g of citric acid and an appropriate amount of food coloring; mix well and boil, then pour into the container holding the jujube blanks, and soak for another 10-12 hours, until the jujube blanks are saturated with the sugar liquid; take them out and sun-dry, then mix with 2 kg of licorice powder and 60 g of cassia oil, and they are ready.

⑥ Packaging. Package in polyethylene plastic bags or boxes.