Lychee Charlotte Royal

Lychees are not only the most famous but also the most popular of Chinese fruits. In the mid-1980s, when I traveled to China with two other chefs, Jacques Pépin and Cindy Pawlcyn, to teach Western-style cooking, it seemed that lychees and either mandarins or oranges were just about the extent of what we were served for dessert — although after the incredible banquets featuring twenty or even thirty courses, that was plenty.

The wide-spreading lychee tree has dense green foliage and