shiokadelicious!

Smooth, Snowy Sweetness

Perhaps you may have noticed : in the last few weeks, I’ve been going through a phase of desiring, and thus indulging in, a fair bit of homey Chinese comfort foods. Maybe it’s the tremendous work pressure I’ve been under lately, but I’ve just been wanting lots of restorative, soulful foods. And being one with a sweet-tooth, more often than not the comfort foods that I crave are sweet. So I’ve been working my way through my little repertoire of traditional Chinese sweet soups or tang shui / tong shui.

This is another very simple, terribly easy to prepare, and yet highly satisfying and enjoyable tong shui…

It is deceptively simple, yet brimming with varied flavors and textures. It involves but four ingredients (at least in my version; although other stuff can and are commonly added too), of which two are among my all-time favorites – which, I suppose, makes this tong shui an automatic winner in my book. The fact that it has a myriad of purported health benefits does it no harm either in staking its claim on my heart. What a nice added bonus - to be able to indulge my desire for something sweet and, at the same time, be comforted in knowing that I’m also eating healthily. It doesn’t get much better than this!

Of course, the best thing about Chinese dessert soups is that they are not confined to being after-meal treats alone; they are eaten at all times of the day – whenever the fancy strikes… breakfast, mid-morning break, lunch, tea, supper… any time of the day is a good time for a soothingly reassuring bowl of sweet tong shui.

Very often tong shuis are seen as an useful tool to help regulate the body’s systems – either to cool them down or to warm them up, depending on the ingredients used to cook the soup. Other times, a balance between “yin” and “yang” is sought – a harmonious blend of “cooling” and “warming” foods lovingly simmered into a sweet, chunky broth.

The snow ear fungus is used in both savory (as written about previously) and sweet soups. Personally, I prefer the dessert version – for obvious reasons, given my love of most things sweet. This fungus is said to be good for clearing “heaty” phlegm-filled lungs. However, a less known – and definitely less discussed – benefit of the snow ear fungus is in the... umm… shall we say “housekeeping” department. This usefulness was related to me by a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Practitioner some years back. Snow ear fungus, when slow-cooked for a fairly lengthy period of time, takes on a gelatinous texture, with a slightly slippery (some would say slimy) feel. And therein lies its secret – it works wonders in smoothing and lubricating the body’s “plumbing” system as it were, and makes things flow easily again, if you know what I mean. This is obviously not a “benefit” that gets trumpeted loudly under normal circumstances, but I’m told it’s a highly efficacious – not to mention tasty – solution to an uncomfortable problem. And hey, I think it sure beats having to imbibe copious amounts of dry, scratchy, sawdust-like bran! But enough of this already… And if you don’t suffer from said inconvenience, then snow ear fungus is also said to be wondrous for achieving a snowy, smooth complexion. So pay heed, ladies!

Along a similar vein, in terms of cooling benefits for the lungs, is the lily bulb (bai he in Mandarin). This is the scale leaf of the bulb of the Lilium plant that has been dried. When cooked, it has a very subtle and delicate sweetness, and a soft, almost nut-like texture – fairly reminiscent of the lotus seed. I adore bai he – almost more than I love lotus seeds, and I like lotus seeds a lot! While I tend to add lotus seeds to a lot of the soups I cook, especially the dessert soups, the bai he makes a less frequent appearance, for some reason or another. But that doesn’t mean I love it any less. I really enjoy its subtlety of flavor, and yet at the same time, its certain robustness of body. To read more about the lily bulb, click here and here. And to see a picture of it in its uncooked state, click here.

Of course, it goes without mention that my version of snow fungus tong shui has lots of lotus seeds (dried or fresh) in it. Some people also like to add thin slices of lotus root to the soup; though I have to confess to not being terribly keen on this combination of textures – the crunchy lotus root seems somehow disruptive to the scheme of things. But that’s just me.

The final ingredient in my tong shui is Chinese Wolfberries – for a dash of color. They also add a nice touch of natural sweetness to the soup. As mentioned before, these wolfberries are great for keeping the eyes bright and sparkling.

Alternatively, the tong shui can be lightly sweetened with dried red dates (which are more warming on the body than the wolfberries) instead. On occasions, I have also seen this sweet soup being made with dried longans added.

So really, there is a great deal of flexibility as to what goes into a tong shui. Some people choose the ingredients based on their benefits for the body or on the “imbalance” in the body systems that they are trying to “adjust”. Others choose purely according to their personal taste preferences.

The cooking process is the same as for almost all sweet soups – the ingredients requiring the longest cooking times go into the pot first ; subsequent ingredients are added in phases according to how much simmering they require ; the sugar is the last to go in.

Snow Ear Fungus Tong Shui

• Soak the snow ear fungus until softened – about 20 minutes or so. [Different batches may require different soaking times.] Rinse well under running water to remove all sand particles. Break the fungus into medium chunks (you can, like me, just use your fingers for this, or a pair of kitchen scissors).

• Check the dried lotus seeds to make sure each one has had their stems removed. De-stem those that still have the green “heart” in them. Rinse well, drain and set aside.

• In a large pot, place enough water to produce the amount of soup you want, the fungus and the dried lotus seeds. [If using fresh lotus seeds, which require a much shorter cooking time, add them later, together with the lily bulbs.] Cook on high heat until the water comes to a rolling boil. Reduce the flame to the lowest setting, and leave to simmer gently until the fungus is tender (about 2½ to 3 hours).

• In the meantime, give the wolfberries a quick rinse, drain and set aside. The lily bulbs should also be given a quick wash and drained well.

• Once the snow ear fungus have reached the desired tenderness, plop in the wolfberries and the lily bulbs. Simmer for another 20 to 30 minutes or so, or until the lily bulbs are tender.

• Add rock sugar to taste. Allow to dissolve completely before removing the soup from the heat and serving.

Shiok!

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All Rights Reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, publish, distribute or display any of the images or text contained in this article.

Ugly But Comforting

This is one of my favorite comfort foods; whenever my spirit dips or my body feels in need of soulful, homely, reassuring sustenance, this comes to mind. As with a lot of comfort foods, this is not a pretty dish. In fact, when it first comes out of the pot – at least the way it is cooked in my kitchen – it is probably downright ugly.

Usually, red bean dessert soup is served either as a fairly watery sweet soup (Chinese/Cantonese style), or with a thicker consistency and topped with coconut cream (Peranakan style). My own preferred way is to cook the red beans down to a thick, almost mash-like consistency – with some of the beans tender to the point of being slightly mushy and the rest of the beans still whole and with some bite…

The beans are then topped with some cold, lightly sweetened soy milk (Sobe being my preferred brand)…

Mixed…

And enjoyed.

I know this way of serving and eating red bean sweet soup may sound a little weird, and some of you… okay, maybe many of you are wrinkling your nose in horror at this, but truly, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. This tastes pretty good; the whole family loves it like this. It tastes somewhat like the coconut cream version (don’t ask me how or why, but for some strange reason, it does), only lighter and healthier.

While red bean sweet soup is usually served piping hot, I like mine refreshingly cold, with beans that have been chilled in the fridge.

Another reason I like cooking the red beans to this consistency is that I find it to be a great topper for ice cream, especially green tea (Haagen Daz’s is good!) ice cream. Or, paired with grass jelly (chin chow; liang fen) or chendol (worm-shaped, soft, slightly chewy, pandan-flavored dough strips made from green bean flour), and spooned over vanilla ice cream. The beans are of course also great for making ice kacang (our popular South East Asian shaved ice dessert) with. Oh, there is also something from my childhood which I absolutely adored: red bean ice popsicles – my mum used to freeze either thick, sweetened red bean soup or soy milk enriched red bean soup into delicious, cool popsicles for a healthy afternoon sweet treat for my brother and I. That is something I haven’t done in a long time; and worth a re-visit soon I think.

There are also various permutations that I play around with, as the mood strikes. Sometimes I will add some dried Mandarin peel for an added aromatic fillip. If I happen to have some on hand, I would pop in some chopped up plain alkali water glutinous rice dumpling (kee chang; jian shui zhong), and let this cook down with the beans until completely dissolved into the soup. This really helps to give the beans a silken smooth texture. Occasionally, I would add some cooked sago to the beans before serving.

This is one food dish that takes up hardly any time or effort, and requires no supervision at all; it happily bubbles and gurgles away whilst you’re having your beauty sleep. The beans are plonked into the crock pot (slow-cooker) just before bedtime and left to do their thing through the night; and you then awake in the morning to freshly made red bean soup.

Hong Dou Tang Shui (Red Bean Sweet Soup)

2 bowlfuls dried red beans *
8 bowlfuls water **
white rock sugar to taste
¾ to 1 small plain alkali water glutinous rice dumpling, diced *** (optional)

[Sorry, I have no specific quantities for the ingredients; I always cook the beans by the guesstimation (agak-agak) method. And there really are no hard and fast rules; personal tastes dictate.]

* For a different textural experience, Japanese azuki beans may be used instead of the local variety. The amount of water and cooking time may have to be adjusted.

** Add more water depending on how you intend to serve the beans, or if a more watery consistency is desired.

*** Fresh, thawed or dried dumplings can be used, to equal results.

• Wash the beans under running water and drain well.

• Bring a pot of water to a boil. Once it reaches a rolling boil, add the beans. When the water returns to a boil, remove from the flame, drain the beans and rinse under running water. Drain.

• Repeat the process again with a pot of fresh water. [This helps to remove the traces of bitterness that are usually found in red beans. It is only necessary to do this with red beans; if making green bean sweet soup, this step can be skipped – green beans don’t seem to give the same bitter overtone.]

• Pop the drained beans into the crock pot, together with the 8 bowls of water and the diced glutinous rice dumpling (if using). Set the slow-cooker to “auto” and leave it for the night.

• The next morning, give the bean mixture a stir, drop in some rock sugar and cover (keeping the crock pot on “auto” mode). When the sugar has dissolved, give the beans another stir and serve. [It is important that the rock sugar goes in only after the beans are cooked and have softened to the tenderness that you want; once the sugar goes in, the beans will not tenderize any further, no matter how long you cook them for! This principle is true of almost all sweet soups (tang shui; tong shui) recipes: the rock sugar goes in last.]

If using sago: cook the sago separately in a pot of boiling water until the pearls turn clear. [It is best to add the raw sago to water that is at a rolling boil, rather than to bring the sago to a boil in a pot of cold water. This prevents them from disintegrating as they are being cooked.] Drain well, and add to the red bean mixture right at the end, after the rock sugar has dissolved. [I prefer to cook the sago separately from the beans, to prevent both the sago and the bean mixture from turning cloudy and gummy – they each seem to have this effect on the other. This way, the sago pearls will have a beautiful transparency, and the red bean soup will keep its silken smooth texture.]

If using dried Mandarin peel: add one medium piece (the fragrance can be too overpowering in excessive quantities) together with the raw beans right at the beginning. Remove the peel and stir to meld the flavors just before serving.

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All Rights Reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, publish, distribute or display any of the images or text contained in this article.

Sugar Water

That’s the literal translation of “tong shui” (Cantonese) or “tang shui” (Mandarin) – the Chinese term for sweet dessert soups. These sweet offerings, usually served piping hot, are very much an integral part of Chinese epicurean culture, especially for the Cantonese, for whom these are almost a requisite to end the meal with, or to have as a light supper before going to bed.

All sorts of things can be used in “sweet soups” – beans (red, green or many other varieties), barley, rolled wheat flakes, lotus seeds, gingko nuts, lotus root, sago, snow fungus, red dates, dried longan… and the list goes on and on.

Even ingredients that are not normally associated with dessert can be and are often used…

Like dried bean curd (fu juk), eggs, and quail eggs! Yes, really. Quail eggs. Hard boiled quail eggs at that. It really isn’t that weird to have eggs and/or hard boiled eggs in a sweet dessert. Honest. It tastes very normal actually – for us at least. It sounds weird, but it doesn’t taste weird. You’ll have to take my word for it.

This fu juk tang shui (dried bean curd skin sweet soup) is one of the favorites of my family. And for me, sometimes, when I just want something sweet for lunch, this is what I cook up. It is real quick and easy, and infinitely healthier and more nutritious than indulging in a large slab of cake or some other dessert. I get to satisfy my sweet craving, have a good amount of protein and be completely guilt free. Not bad for a humble dessert soup, eh?

The process is very straightforward and the ingredients simple; this doesn’t even really qualify as a recipe. But here goes…

All that is needed is some dried bean curd skin (I recently found, much to my delight, this Hong Kong-made brand – see above picture – at the market provision shop; and this sheet type of fu juk is especially well-suited for making tang shui with, compared to the regular dried bean curd stick – marvelously silky smooth and very delicate and tender), dried (or fresh, if you have some on hand) lotus seeds, fresh gingko nuts, pearl barley, fresh chicken eggs, and fresh quail eggs.

The only fiddly bits are the prepping of the gingko nuts and the quail eggs. The latter have to be hard boiled and then shelled. Not difficult; just a little time-consuming – if you are using large numbers of the eggs. Sometimes I just leave them out if I’m feeling lazy (see top picture). But I do so love quail eggs, and where possible always try to include a few in the soup.

You can buy vacuum packed ready-prepared gingko nuts at the supermarket, and these are super convenient. But I have almost always, the few times I’ve tried them, had unpleasant experiences with these – most of the time, they leave a rather nasty after-taste in the mouth, presumably from the preservatives or some other chemicals that are probably used in the processing of the gingkos. So, I prefer to use the fresh ones that come still in their shells. It is a lot more work to get these prepped, but I think taste-wise, it is worth the effort. The nuts can be prepared the day before, or even several days before, and kept in the fridge. So that cuts down a lot of the “on the day” fiddling.

The shells are very hard and tough; use a stone mortar and pestle to crack them open. Once the shells have been removed, the gingkos need to go into a pot of boiling water, to soften the skin, which can then be peeled off. Then, the laborious part of the process starts: each gingko has to be carefully slit open and the bitter inner stem removed. This is extremely bitter – you absolutely do not want to be biting into a gingko nut that still has some stem in it. So make sure each stem is cleanly removed. At this point, the gingko nuts can be stored in the fridge until they are ready to be used.

To make the bean curd dessert soup: bring a pot of water to a boil (use as much water as you need to create the amount of soup you want), and pop in the dried lotus seeds and pearl barley. These need a fairly lengthy cooking time. Leave them to simmer until the lotus seeds are nicely fork tender. Just as they become ready, return the soup to a rolling boil, add white rock sugar to taste, and simmer to dissolve the sugar.

While the lotus seeds and barley are cooking, in a separate pot, boil the prepped gingko nuts in a little simple syrup water (some white rock sugar with water) until tender. Drain and set aside. (I find that boiling the gingko nuts separately and then adding them to the main soup helps get rid of any last vestiges of bitterness that may be there.)

Once the lotus seeds are ready, add the drained gingkos to the lotus seed soup and bring it back to a rolling boil. Place the fu juk sheets into the soup. Watch the pot carefully at this point; these cook real quick (in a matter of a few minutes). Avoid over-cooking the fu juk, as they will disintegrate into mush. When the bean curd skin has turned from yellow to white in color, bring the soup back up to a strong rolling boil, pour in the raw chicken eggs, give a quick but gentle stir, and immediately turn off the flame. You really don’t want to overcook both the eggs (they should be soft and silken – not coarse, rubbery – strands in the soup) and the fu juk (which should be melt-in-the-mouth tender and silky smooth, yet not mushy). Continue to stir gently as the eggs finish cooking in the residual heat, to create lovely, elegant, elongated egg strands. Finally, drop in the hard boiled quail eggs (if using). Stir to mix. Dish into bowls, and serve.

Leftover soup can be kept in the fridge for a day or so. I actually enjoy eating this soup cold, straight from the fridge, more than I do hot - unconventional as this may be. And something that will, in all likelihood, have people of my grandmother’s generation nagging at me ad infinitum if they ever see it.

Chinese women believe that eating lots of bean curd will give a porcelain-smooth complexion. I suppose there is some truth in that; given that soy is supposedly redolent with phyto-estrogens. By the same token, it is believed that regularly eating this dessert soup during pregnancy will produce babies with smooth silken skin!

Beauty aside though, this sweet soup is wonderful soul food: warming and soothing; a very comforting and restorative bowl of sweetness. The past week alone, when I’ve been under tremendous work pressures, I’ve craved, made and eaten this soup three times! It’s a wonderfully reassuring thing to tuck into – light, refreshing and calming. Besides, aren’t gingko nuts supposed to be highly beneficial for the brain? A tasty way to bolster mental energy as I burnt the midnight oil this past week.

Ah! Sweet, sweet comfort food of home!

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All Rights Reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, publish, distribute or display any of the images or text contained in this article.

Split Personality Bread Pudding

The other day, while sorting through a cookie tin full of old recipes that I had copied from various places and scribbled onto scrap pieces of paper, I came across one for bread pudding. I love bread pudding. So does my family. And since we haven’t eaten any for a while, I thought I would try my hand at making one. The weather this past week has also been perfect for bread pudding. There’s nothing quite like eating warm comfort food on a cool rainy day.

I have never made bread pudding before. Yes, another first. Hmmm… it has been a week of kitchen firsts hasn’t it? The recipe looked really simple and it was. It was just a matter of soaking cubes of slightly stale bread into a custard mixture of brown sugar, eggs, evaporated milk and fresh milk.

As usual, I wanted to experiment with different tastes and had a hard time deciding what exactly I was going to do. I wanted to make a bread pudding using raisin cinnamon bread, and I also wanted to try white bread with toasted almond flakes. But I didn’t want to make two bread puddings. So, I made one – with both types of bread. A sort of split personality bread pudding I guess.

For the custard: ½ cup (I think I would prefer slightly less the next time) packed brown sugar was whisked together with 2 eggs. Then, 1 cup of low fat (1.5%) evaporated milk and ½ cup 1.5% fresh milk were added, together with 1½ teaspoons of pure vanilla extract, and whisked to mix. I decided to skip the cinnamon and nutmeg that the recipe called for, as the raisin bread already had cinnamon and I wanted to see what the white bread would taste like without these flavorings and just almond flakes. But of course, I then promptly forgot to add the almond flakes to the white bread mixture!

I divided the custard/pudding mixture into two and added one type of bread cubes to each. (4 cups of bread cubes in total). These were left to sit for about 5 minutes, before going into a 175C oven for 50 minutes, or until the bread has puffed up and turned a deep golden brown. Mine was done in just over 45 minutes - the skewer inserted into the center already came out clean. The bread was a gorgeous golden brown.

I walked away to get my camera to take a picture of the beautifully puffed up pudding. On the way, I stopped to take care of something. I returned to the kitchen 5 minutes later to find that the entire pudding had “sunk” !! Horrors! What happened?! Are bread puddings supposed to do that?? Or maybe I should have left it in the oven to cool slightly first before removing it. Perhaps my impatience caused the “collapse”. Have to find out what happened there…

Regardless, it tasted pretty good. I sprinkled the forgotten almond flakes onto the white bread pudding before serving, and that was very good! Strangely though, the white bread pudding tasted sweeter than the raisin bread pudding. I wasn’t expecting that. If anything, I would have thought the latter would come out sweeter, as the raisin bread is in itself sweeter than the white bread.

Bread pudding on a rain-soaked day… what could be better?

Happy bread pudding-ing!

[Update (23/12/03): It just occurred to me that a possible reason why the bread pudding "sunk" after being removed from the oven is that I didn't place the casserole on a baking tray filled with about 1" deep of water, before putting it into the oven. I think a lot of bread pudding recipes call for such a step. For some reason, the recipe I used did not - or maybe I had scribbled it down wrongly way back when...
I'm thinking also that placing the casserole in a shallow water bath so to speak would create a different (more custardy?) texture, rather than a more kueh-like (cakey) texture.
Not sure if the baking time would need to be adjusted if using the water bath. It should either be the same or maybe just a few minutes longer (?)
I'll have to try the recipe again to find out...]

Copyright © 2003 Renee Kho. All rights reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, distribute or display any of the images and text contained in this article.

It’s a Good Thing

What is that goop??? You ask. It is warm oatmeal sprinkled with demerara sugar. Yum! The partially melted sugar crystals give a very nice sweet crunch to the otherwise bland oatmeal. There is almost a nutty taste to the sugar.

But why on earth am I blogging about oatmeal of all the food in the world? But why ever not? Okay, granted, glossy, creative, arty-looking photos of elegant recipes have become almost de rigeur in a lot of foodblogs. There’s nothing wrong with that. I absolutely enjoy taking in the glorious, mouth-watering pictures, and thus taste different cuisines and cooking styles vicariously through them – they inspire and whet the appetite of mind, body and soul. But I think there is also room for the everyday food. What you and I eat everyday, which we don’t blog about, maybe because it doesn’t have enough “glam factor”. It’s the comfort food, the easy food that we throw together to feed ourselves and our families, which are simple yet heart-warming. The down-too-earth soul food so to speak.

Alright, many people might dispute that oatmeal can and should be considered as “soul food”. But it’s good wholesome, natural food. And when paired with demerara sugar or sometimes even sweet condensed milk, “it’s a good thing” (as Martha would say).

Where exactly am I going with this oatmeal thing? Nowhere really. Today was a Monday. And Monday mornings are tough. It took all my will-power to get out of bed this morning and drag my sleep-deprived body off to Pilates class. I could feel the weekend indulgence of food and laziness in every muscle fiber as I willed them to move and contort through their paces. And yet the rewards are sweet. By the end of class there was a buzz in my body, a spring in my step and a smile in my heart. I felt energized and happy. Added to that, the simple breakfast of demerara oatmeal just made for a very comforting start to a brand new week…

Alright, alright, enough of this ramble already. I guess it’s painfully clear by now I have nothing much to blog about tonight. Haha… So, I’ll just say g’nite!

Copyright © 2003 Renee Kho. All rights reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, distribute or display any of the images and text contained in this article.

Sweet, Sweet Potato

Didn’t get around to having breakfast or lunch yesterday – work is always a little crazy after a public holiday or weekend. (Tuesday was the Muslim New Year: Hari Raya Aidilfitri). So, I just had a bowl of sweet potato syrup soup.

This is a firm favorite of a lot of Chinese families. It is usually cooked as an after-dinner dessert. And there are many variations. The Cantonese (especially in North Asia) like it light, with just sweet potato boiled with water and rock sugar. The Peranakans add yams, sago and coconut milk to make the rich dessert, Bubur ChaCha. Chinese in South East Asia may add sago and/or pandan leaves to the Cantonese version.

My family usually cooks the sweet potatoes with ginger, sago and rock sugar. Yesterday, it was just ginger, pandan leaves (as an aromatic) and rock sugar. It’s great as a sort of “de-tox” for the digestive system after the previous day’s rich foods. Ginger helps relieve indigestion, bloatedness or wind. Pandan water (leaves cooked in water) is great for reducing uric acid, and it adds a very nice fragrance to the sweet potato soup too.

Just boil the chunks of sweet potato with maybe 2-3 good sized chunks of young ginger and enough water to cover. Tie a few pandan leaves together into a bundle, and drop it in to flavor the soup. (This is removed before serving). Add rock sugar to taste.

click on image for larger view

We usually get two varieties of sweet potatoes – the yellow fleshed with the lighter skin and the orange fleshed with a darker skin. I prefer the latter, which is sweeter, more moist and fluffier than the former. I think the Americans call the latter “yams” whilst we know them as a type of sweet potatoes. Hmmm… what do the Americans call the tuber that has slightly purplish flesh that we actually call yams?

PS. Another variation that I do with this sweet potato soup, especially when it is cooked with sago, is to have it cold from the fridge, and add a little soy milk (sweetened or unsweetened) – tastes pretty good!

Copyright © 2003 Renee Kho. All rights reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, distribute or display any of the images and text contained in this article.