Goji berries without the fuss

Goji berries are the fruit of Lycium barbarum and the closely related Lycium chinense, shrubs in the nightshade family, the same broad family as tomatoes and capsicums. They have been grown and eaten in China for a very long time, where they are often called wolfberries, and most of the dried goji sold in New Zealand comes from Chinese growers. Fresh, they are soft, juicy and rarely seen here. Dried, they are small, wrinkled, orange-red and slightly leathery.

That is the whole of what you are buying: a dried fruit. A good one, with an interesting flavour, but a dried fruit.

What they taste like

Dried goji is less sweet than a raisin and more tart, with a faint savoury, almost tomato-like edge that makes sense once you know the family it comes from. Straight from the bag they are chewy, sometimes a little tough. Soaked, they turn plump and soft and the tartness comes forward.

People tend to have a firm opinion after the first handful. If you are curious, buy the smallest bag you can find before committing to a big one.

What is in them

Like all dried fruit, goji is concentrated. Water has been taken out, so the natural sugars and fibre are packed into a smaller weight. Food composition tables from the United States Department of Agriculture list dried goji at about 46 g of sugars and 13 g of fibre per 100 g. For comparison, the same tables list dark seedless raisins at about 65 g of sugars and 4.5 g of fibre per 100 g. So goji is somewhat less sugary and more fibrous than raisins by weight, but it is still a sweet dried fruit, and it is eaten the same way: a small handful at a time.

New Zealand’s nutrient figures for many foods are collected in the New Zealand Food Composition Database if you want to compare dried fruits side by side.

An honest word on the evidence

You will find big claims for goji online. Some of the research behind those claims exists, but most of it has been done in laboratories, on animals, or in small and short human studies, often using concentrated extracts rather than a handful of dried berries in your muesli. That is a long way from showing that eating goji does anything particular for a person. Where the evidence is thin, we would rather say so than repeat the story.

What we can say plainly is that goji is a fruit, and fruit and vegetables in general are the backbone of everyday eating in the guidance on Health New Zealand’s eating well page. A handful of goji counts as a handful of dried fruit. It does not count for more than that.

Soaking

For most uses, a short soak makes goji much nicer to eat.

• Quick soak: cover with just-boiled water for ten minutes, then drain.
• Cold soak: cover with cold water or juice in the fridge overnight.
• In the dish: add them dry to anything with liquid that cooks for ten minutes or more, such as porridge or a braise, and they soak as it cooks.

The soaking water picks up colour and a mild sweet-tart flavour. Use it to cook porridge or add it to a pot of tea.

Where they earn their price

Goji usually costs a good deal more per kilo than raisins, sultanas or dried apricots, so it makes sense to use it where its particular flavour and colour show, and use cheaper dried fruit elsewhere.

Porridge and bircher. A tablespoon stirred in for the last few minutes gives little bright, tart bursts. This is where we use it most.

Savoury rice and grain dishes. A small handful soaked and folded through a pilaf, a barley salad or a couscous with roast pumpkin works the way barberries or currants do in Middle Eastern cooking. The tartness cuts the richness.

Soups and broths. In Chinese home cooking, goji goes into chicken soups and herbal broths, added near the end so it plumps without falling apart. A small handful in a pot of chicken and ginger broth on a cold Wellington night is a good use for it.

Baking. In muffins and loaves, soaked goji behaves like soaked raisins. Unsoaked, it can stay chewy and draw moisture from the crumb.

Trail mix. Fine, but this is where cheaper raisins do the same job for less.

Where we would not bother

Goji powder and goji juice cost far more per serve than the dried fruit and lose most of what makes it pleasant to cook with: the texture and the little bursts of flavour. If you want goji, buy the berries.

Storing them

Dried goji keeps well in a sealed jar in a cool, dark cupboard for several months. If the berries clump into a hard block, a short soak frees them. If they smell musty or show any fuzz, throw them out. Like all dried fruit, they can attract pantry moths, so a sealed glass jar beats the bag it came in.

A normal portion

A serve is a small handful, about a tablespoon or two, or roughly 15 to 30 g. Use it like any dried fruit: a little at a time, for colour and flavour, in dishes you would cook anyway.

General information only — not medical or dietary advice. For advice about your own diet, see your GP or a NZ-registered dietitian.