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Ffrom the Lillipili family, these amazing little berries are just awesome. Their cinnamon - clove with a woodsy edge flavor go oh so well with a luscious creamy brie, not to mention as a quick after glaze on sliced steak or other game meat. Their wonderful aromatic flavor make them very versatile
The berries are about the size of a a red currant, but are slightly pear shaped. They are most commonly a bright purple in color, but range down to a soft pink. They are seedless, and easy to use. We import them in a light sugar syrup, and we highly recommend retaining any excess syrup, since it still holds a lot of flavor (in fact, soaking dried cranberries in the leftover syrup will impart the cranberries with the riberry flavor).
Riberries contain the essential oils myrcene (found in nutmeg), pinene (occurs in many cooking herbs), and limonene (bay leaves), and the palate has a wonderful complexity.
Nutritional: The berries are a good source of essential minerals.
Botanical: Syzygium luchmanii.
The trees are grown extensively throughout coastal and inland areas of central and northern New South Wales and Quensland. They are a popular domestic garden tree, and are also used extensively as street trees and in public parks. They are a rainforest tree, and in their natural rainforest environment, will grow to 20 meters (60 ft),although out of the rainforest, they usually only gain half of that height. They have an attractive pretty pinkish colored new foliage, colorful flowers and fruit.
Uses: very versatile, they go especially well with game meats and creamy cheeses. They retain their flavor on cooking ,although they will tend to lighten in color.
Combination with other Indigenous Foods: Go with: illawarra plums, lemonaspen, native peppers. Do not go with: bush tomato, akudjura,Davidson or Kakadu plums (they do not go well with more acidic fruits.
Other recommended combinations: Soft fruits such as peaches, plums, apricots, magoes, bananas, coconut and rhubarb. Fresh ginger is also great with riberry. Less obvious is potato and butternut squash, and, of course, dark chocolate.
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