Luo Han Guo with Lotus Roots dessert 罗汉果莲藕甜汤

It has been a few months since I last updated my blog...it feels good to be able to sit down and post something today.

I bookmarked this luo han guo with lotus root dessert ever since my blogging pal Sherlyn gave me a cookbook filled with delicious dessert recipes. As usual, I procrastinated and eventually forgot about it. It is only when the weather is getting so hot and warm that this recipe came to my mind.

This dessert soup is very simple to prepare as there are only 3 ingredients...lotus root, lou han guo and some red dates. These three ingredients are packed with nutritional values and are known for their wide range of health benefits. There is no sugar added to this soup as the lou han guo is naturally very sweet. I bought the lotus root from the wet market, those which are sold covered in mud. I think this type of lotus root is better as it is more fresh and crunchy.

This healthy dessert soup helps to remove heatiness and moisten the lungs. Besides the health benefits, it is a delightful, fragrant and sweet dessert that can be enjoyed warm, hot or chilled.



Luo Han Guo with Lotus Roots dessert 罗汉果莲藕甜汤

Ingredients:
(serves 4)

2 luo han guo fruits (I used only 1 fruit)
1 large section of lotus roots
6 cups (1.5 litres) of water
10 red dates

Method:

• Rinse and soak the red dates in some water for about 15 mins.
• Rinse and crack the luo han guo.
• Wash and peel the lotus roots. Cut into slices (about 5mm thick).
• Fill pot with 6 cups of water, add in the luo han guo and red dates, bring to boil. Cover, turn to Low heat and leave to simmer for about 20 mins.
• Add in the lotus roots, bring to boil and leave to simmer on Low heat for about 15 mins. 
• Serve hot, warm or chilled (let cool and leave to chill in the fridge before serving).

Recipe source: 甜蜜食堂, 贝太厨房

Everyday Dessert

Ever since I learned how to cook this simple Chinese dessert...known as Tau Suan, I will make sure my better half gets to eat his favourite dessert whenever he is back home.

If you are living on the other side of the earth from this little red dot, Tau Suan is a warm, sweet dessert made with split, skinned mung beans. The mung beans is usually steamed still it is cooked before it is boiled in a pot of water. Not just plain water, but water that has been simmering away with a few bundles of pandan leaves or screw pine leaves. The soup is then sweetened with sugar and thickened with starch such as sweet potato flour or water chestnut flour. This dessert is always served with fried you tiao or fried dough fritters, a bowl of tau suan will never taste the same if there is no you tiao to go with it.

This cheap and simple dessert is easily available at most dessert stalls here...and if I am not wrong, there is at least one dessert stall in every single food centre or what we known as hawker centres. However, nowadays, it is not easy to find good tau suan. I either get a bowl of watery mung beans with a lot more water than mung beans, or the consistency of the dessert is so thick that it was no different from swallowing a bowl of gummy glue.

Although it is a simple dessert to prepare, it never occurred to me that I could actually make it at home...not until I first saw it at Esther's blog, Bits and Pieces of Life. She has followed the recipe from Makansutra, and thanks to Seetoh's video, I've since learned how to cook tua suan! I noted his unique way of stir frying the mung beans till it caramelised. This is definitely something different from the usual method of steaming the mung beans. By stir frying them, not only it shortens the preparation time; ensures the beans remain 'whole'; it also gives the dessert a nice golden hue. I have later tried another recipe using the steam method (just to compare), but the colour of the tau suan looks so pale and unappetising despite replacing white sugar with brown ones.

The other thing to note is the right type of starch to use as thickening agent. Water chestnut flour will give the best moulthfeel, without being too sticky, followed by sweet potato flour. Hope over to this interesting article to learn about the 'power' of the various thickening agents. For his recipe, Seetoh uses a combination of water chestnut and sweet potato flour. However, I used only sweet potato flour, yet I don't find the consistency or taste of the tau suan being compromised. My homemade tau suan tastes better than what I could get from most dessert stalls. Someday, when I find suitable recipes to use up water chestnut flour, I will certainly use it to thicken the dessert.

With the right knowledge of the ingredients, and following the recipe closely, anyone can make a nice bowl of tau suan. Do give this simple dessert a try, I am sure you won't regret it :)



Tau Suan with You Tiao

Ingredients:
(serves 4)

1.5 ltr water
2 ~ 3 bundles of pandan leaves
250g split mung beans
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
50g sweet potato flour (original recipe calls for 30g water chestnut flour and 20g sweet potato flour)
50ml water
2 ~ 3 tablespoons granulated sugar (adjust according to taste)
1 stick of you tiao

Method:

• Soak mung beans for about 5mins. Drain and set aside. 
• Wash pandan leaves and tie into bundles.
• Place water and pandan leaves in a pot. Leave to simmer for about 10mins.
• In the mean time, place mung beans in a frying pan. Add 3 tablespoons of sugar and stir fry continuously over low heat till the mung beans caramelised (about 8~10 mins).
• Discard the pandan leaves from the pot of water.
• Transfer mung beans into the pot of water. Bring it back to boil. Leave to boil for another 5~10 mins. Taste the beans for the prefered texture. Cook a couple of mins longer if prefer softer texture. Add in 2 ~ 3 tablespoons of sugar. Stir to dissolve the sugar.
• Dissolve sweet potato flour with 50ml of water. Stir in gradually. Turn off the heat once it comes to a boil. 
• Serve with you tiao or dough fritters

(note: in order to get a nice consistency, do follow the ingredient amount closely, especially amount of water, amount of water chestnut/sweet potato flour.)

Recipe source: adapted from Makansutra Cooking

7 random things

We had this sweet treat on a Sat afternoon when the three of us were winding down from the activities earlier in the day. I had a tub of plain yoghurt that was going to be expired soon, and so I thought why not make a simple dessert out of it.

There was this almost over-ripe mango sitting on the kitchen counter so I married the two and made a simple mango yoghurt parfait. The mango was very soft and juicy so I could easily mashed it up a little without having to use a blender. I layered the yoghurt with the mango puree and topped it with some chopped mango and strawberry pieces. I plucked some mint leaves from my pot of striving mint plant, and used it as 'garnish'. The dessert looked so appetising that my kids actually let out a 'wah...so nice!'. I am glad they find the taste is as good as the food presentation :)

I feel very honored to receive this "One Lovely Blog' award recently. Thanks to Jes of Jes's Deli Corner, Esther of x3Baking, Beanie of Beanie Kitchen Diary , Edith of pReCious MoMentS and Janice of Home Cook Baker for passing the award to me. Here's a cup of my mango yoghurt parfait for each one of you ;)


There are some rules to abide in order to accept this award and they are:

1. Post linking back to the person that gave you the award
2. Share 7 random things about yourself
3. Award 15 recently discovered blogs
4. Drop them a note and tell them about it.


I would like to dedicate this awards to:

A Little Bit of Plum Leaf 李葉
Cathy's Joy
Cook With No Books
Chunky Cooky
Eat and Be Happy
Engineer and an Oven
Fong's Kitchen Journal
j3sskitch3n
Linden Tea
Not The Kitchen Sink
Sotong Cooks - Cooking it my way!
The Sweet Spot
Wen's Delight
'爱'生活 My Life
启动生命的旋律



and here are the 7 random things about myself:

1. I do not have a facebook account. I doubt I will ever sign up since I don't really have that many friends. My kids do not have facebook accounts too. Yes, I know kids are not supposed to sign up, but most of their friends and all their cousins are on FB. My elder kid is facing some pressure from his friends to sign up since he goes to secondary school. I'll see when he will give in ;)

2. Although I blog in English, I speak almost 100% Mandarin at home. I read Chinese books, magazines and even the Chinese papers. I speak English only if the other party is not able to understand Chinese at all. But I do use a mixture of English and Mandarin when necessary...especially when there is a need to scold my children...somehow, I feel that certain English phrases are very good and effective to drum down my message onto them.

3. So far I have never taken any photography course. I really do not know much about photography. I could only use the auto-mode and the macro-function of my camera. My photos are all point-and-shoot.

4. I am still using this point and shoot camera we bought in 2004. It is starting to get very old lately, as the battery cannot be charged. I have to use the camera with an ac adapter :'(
My elder son has joined photography club as his second CCA in school. He has started to learn how to use a DSLR, and he brought home a Cannon 550D yesterday as he needs to cover two events these two days. They have to cover at least 5 events a year...no one can join the club just for fun. One glance at the DSLR has already made me see stars...I can never get it right with the 'f', aperture, etc. I think I will do myself good by sticking to an idiot proof camera.

5. I have yet to attend a baking class, although I did watch a free cooking demo at a departmental store ;) So, do beware when you feel like trying out the recipes I have shared here. I am no professional baker, I am still a novice!

6. I like photo editing! It comes close to baking.  I enjoy desktop publishing kind of work...when the www first came to us, I even thought of learning the html so that I can do web designing! But it is all words with no actions, not very different from my dream of opening up a small shop to sell cute stuff or be a librarian so that I can read books the whole day, or becoming a barista when starbucks opened its first outlet here.

7. The thing that I don't really enjoy about blogging is answering questions. Don't get me wrong. I will answer any queries, and from answering them, I get to know even more about baking. The only thing that I do not enjoy is, after answering whatever questions, I usually do not get a reply. I would say only 2 out of 10 will come back with a response. I looked forward to a response as sometimes I do not know whether the person understands what I have written, or whether I have misled anyone with my answers. Sometimes I do not have an answer to the query, but I will try to provide useful sites so that the person could refer to it, so I was silly enough to think that the person may come back and tell me that the problem has been solved. I used to wait for a response, but I know better now, there is no point expecting a response. So, I am always in dilemma...whether to answer that query, especially when I suspect the person may not even come back to the page or may just ask for the sake of asking. I don't want to sound offensive, but it is not a nice feeling when you are treated like a help desk? Or is it just me feeling that way??

Weekend is here...to all my weekend baker pals, enjoy your weekend, and happy baking!!!