Dried Oleaster (Sinjid)

Sinjid is the small oval fruit of the oleaster, or russian olive, tree, dried until the thin reddish skin crackles away from the flesh inside. It is not juicy and it is not chewy: the inside is dry, pale and powdery, and it dissolves in the mouth into something sweet and mildly nutty, closer to a date sugar shortbread than to any other dried fruit. There is a hard stone in the centre.

Everything else on this page is a dried grape or berry. Sinjid is neither, and that floury, melting texture is the whole reason people buy it. It is also the reason it is bought seasonally rather than by the bag: sinjid is one of the fruits set out on the haft seen table at Nowruz, and for many Afghan and Persian households the taste is tied to that one week of the year.

How to use them

Eat them as they are, cracking the skin with your teeth and leaving the stone, which is how they are served with green or black tea. Put them on the Nowruz haft seen table and on Eid dried fruit platters alongside pistachios, almonds, dried apricot and green raisins, or add them to a bowl of noql. Ground to a powder, the dry flesh is used in traditional sweets and confections and can be stirred into halwa or dusted over milk puddings such as sheer payra. Warm them briefly in a dry pan before serving and the nutty note comes forward.

Details

Also known as

Sinjid, senjed, senjit, oleaster fruit, russian olive fruit, silver berry, wild olive fruit, سنجد