Chinese Desserts

Simple home made Desserts which are popular among many Chinese families are red bean soup, green bean soup, barley drink, sweet potato soup, bubur cha cha and tong sui. These Desserts can be served either hot, warm or cold, depending on individual liking.  

Tong Sui is one of my favourite Dessert.  The ingredients to cook this Dessert varies and here's to share my version of it, and hope you will all like it!

What you need:

• dried lotus seed (wash, soak overnight, remove germs inside the seed, drain and put aside)
• fresh gingko nuts (see tips on how to prepare fresh gingko nuts)
• dried white fungus (soak, wash, trim off the hard bottom,  tear into pieces and put aside)
• Yi Yi Ren/Imported Barley (wash, soak overnight, drain and put aside)
• dried longan (wash just before cooking)
• rock sugar (to taste)
• pine leaves or pandan leaves (wash, tie into knots)

Tips on how to prepare fresh gingko nuts:

fresh gingko nuts

crack the nuts

remove the thin membrane

to get this!

use a toothpick to remove the germs

Notes: The flesh of the gingko can be boiled in water, drained, cooled, tightly kept in a zip lock bag and put in the freezer for use at any time.

Few simple steps to cook this dessert:

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil, then put in lotus seed and barley first as they need more time to cook.
2. Once the lotus seeds are slightly soft, add in gingko nuts, white fungus and pine leaves. Continue to let it boil.  The softness of the white fungus depends on individual, some prefer it softer while others prefer it crunchier.  
3. Just as all the ingredients are almost cooked, put in the washed dried longan and rock sugar. Give it a good stir to ensure that the rock sugar is well dissolved.
4. Taste the sweetness of the soup according to your liking.  
5. Remove the pot from fire and ready to serve in bowls, if you prefer it hot. 

Notes: (1) If you do notice that I did not put the exact amount of each ingredients for this dessert, it's simply because it is not necessary to do so.  It's up to individual's preferences. I normally will put more gingko nuts because of it's herbal properties and it's my favourite! 

(2) Seedless red dates goes well with this tong sui, but this time round I did not include it because I prefer to have a more cooling dessert as red dates is considered more heaty!