A Tong Sui is a Chè is a Soupy Dessert
Coming
from both Cantonese and Vietnamese heritages, my tummy is doubly
fortunate to grow up feasting on desserts of those cuisines...in liquid form. The Cantonese
calls it tong sui (糖水) or tian tang (甜湯) while the Vietnamese calls it chè.
Tong sui and chè are each in their respective language the collective
term for any sweet soup or soupy consistency dessert and custard.
Tong sui 'sugar water' originates from and is distinctive to the Cantonese cuisine, but has been warmly scooped up by Chinese food fans the world over. There are hot and cold varieties, but both are similarly served at the end of a full Cantonese meal. That is unless you're like me, who likes to eat her sweets before meals, between meals or just about any time of day, then feel free to liberate yourself from this order etiquette!
Chinese people generally don't like their food sweet and this preference carries over to their desserts as well. Tong sui recipes don't call for as much sugar per serving as most of their Western counterparts. Sweetness should never assault your tastebuds, only tickle them. Another quality of tong sui is its healthiness. Because tong sui doesn't use oil, butter, or other types of nutritionally empty fat, the natural taste and nutritional value of the star ingredients, may it be almonds, walnuts, red dates, ginkgo nuts, dried logans, papayas or soybeans shine through.
A staple fare at any Cantonese restaurant worth its salt will have red bean soup (紅豆沙). Other common fares are green bean soup (綠豆沙), black sesame seed paste soup (芝麻糊, see below), almond paste soup (杏仁糊), peanut soup (花生糊), tofu pudding (豆腐花), and almond pudding (杏仁花). Apart from these, it can get a bit exotic and can generally only be savoured at stand alone dessert stores or cafes. New spots are ever bubbling up in and around New York's Manhattan Chinatown, Brooklyn Chinatowns (Sunset Park, Avenue U), and Queen Chinatown (Flushing) for one to sample. Alternatively, one can always learn to make some at home.
For the Vietnamese, they can take their sweets a little, well, sweeter than the Chinese. One would never know that the mung bean is so disappointingly bland from tasting the insanely numerous selection of desserts it has been transformed into by the Vietnamese. Just the plethora of chès the mung bean has lend itself to is impressive. For example, there is the humble Mung Bean with Tapioca Pearls (Chè Đậu Xanh) at one end of the spectrum while, on the other end, the mouthful Mung Bean, Sweet Potato, Seaweed and Tapioca Pearls! Sweet sticky rice and coconut milk also pervade through many definitive chè recipes and hotchpotch concoctions.
I personally find Vietnamese chè a lick more addictive than Chinese tong sui to my waistline's detriment and health's distress. Compounding into this toxic brew is the near unfailing availability of it in my home. My mom, when she cooks, would whip up a five days' worth supply of a pot. Don't get me wrong, my tummy is very appreciative, especially since around the New York metro area, there aren't any chè stores nor food specialty shops that readily and consistently carries a fresh supply. Tan Tin-Hung Market only receives a fresh batch on Fridays (last I checked). Many of the banh mi (sandwich) shops sporadically stock some, such as Tan Thanh Bakery in Brooklyn. I'm waiting for the joyous day a chè cafe of the caliber of those found in the Eden Center in Falls Church, Virginia. Since it's just a hop, skip, and jump away from Washington, DC, whenever I venture down there via my $35 roundtrip bus ride, I always have to put aside time to go gawk and salivate over the trays after trays of complementing fragrant whiffs of sweet rice, coconut, banana, pandan leaves, cassava, sweet potatoes,...
I really can keep going, but instead I think I'm going to go have a bowl of Chè Đậu (Black Eyed Peas and Sweet Glutinous Rice in Coconut Milk) right now.
Black Sesame Seed Dessert Soup
Given my curiosity and love of food, of course I sought out this place. Given my curiosity and love of food, of course I sought out other places for comparison of the same ware. The conclusion: I was not impressed. I wasn't sure if I just didn't care for the dish or I keep getting inferior specimen- too gray, too gruely, too gritty. My last resort- try making it myself.
It is relatively labor intensive, but only because I didn't have the convenience of a grinder. For those of you who do, the process will be a whiz. Either way, I highly recommend this dessert. And if my one recommendation means squat, the conventional believe is eating lots of black sesame seeds will give you shiny luscious hair. I'm just passing the word along...
Serves 5
Ingredients
• 1 ¾ cup white glutinous rice (1 ½ cup if also using black glutinous rice)- wash and soak at least 20 minutes
• ¼ cup black glutinous rice (optional)- wash and soak at least 20 minutes
• 2 cups black sesame seeds- toast, grind to a powder (by mortar and pestle or spice grinder) and soak.
• Rock sugar- Start with 1 big rock (about size of handball) and taste for sweetness. If using brown sugar, start with ¾ cup.
• Filtered or spring water for soaking and cooking liquid
Equipment
• 1 medium pot, 1 large pot or 2 large pots
• fine mesh strainer
Directions
1. Grind the soaked glutinous rice in blender or spice grinder as smooth as possible.
2. Cook the ground rice in 4 cups of water to a boil in a medium-sized pot on a flame distrubuter/muter (if you have one) then turn heat down to a simmer. Stir frequently so the rice doesn’t clump and burn at the bottom of the pot.
3. Add the soaked black sesame seed powder. Add more filtered water to thin out the mixture.
4. Stir the rice and seed mixture frequently to prevent clumping and burning.
5. Cook for another 10-25 minutes to release the flavors of the ingredients, then strain everything through a fine mesh into a large pot over low fire scraping down the mixture through the mesh.
6. Pour all the solids that didn’t strain through back into the blender to blend again to a smooth paste. Add a little water as needed to help the blending process.
7. Restrain the blended mixture into the large pot. Add some more water through the strainer to ease the straining process.
8. Anything that can’t be strain this time around can be trashed.
9. Add the rock or brown sugar.
10. Simmer the soup down until the sugar is melted and the consistency is a slightly thickened gruel; this may take about 5-7 minutes over low heat. Stir the content to prevent clumps and worse, burned clumps, from forming at the bottom of the pot. The finished consistency we’re looking for is something that pours easily off the spoon but still coats it.
This is best served hot.
Tong sui 'sugar water' originates from and is distinctive to the Cantonese cuisine, but has been warmly scooped up by Chinese food fans the world over. There are hot and cold varieties, but both are similarly served at the end of a full Cantonese meal. That is unless you're like me, who likes to eat her sweets before meals, between meals or just about any time of day, then feel free to liberate yourself from this order etiquette!
Chinese people generally don't like their food sweet and this preference carries over to their desserts as well. Tong sui recipes don't call for as much sugar per serving as most of their Western counterparts. Sweetness should never assault your tastebuds, only tickle them. Another quality of tong sui is its healthiness. Because tong sui doesn't use oil, butter, or other types of nutritionally empty fat, the natural taste and nutritional value of the star ingredients, may it be almonds, walnuts, red dates, ginkgo nuts, dried logans, papayas or soybeans shine through.
A staple fare at any Cantonese restaurant worth its salt will have red bean soup (紅豆沙). Other common fares are green bean soup (綠豆沙), black sesame seed paste soup (芝麻糊, see below), almond paste soup (杏仁糊), peanut soup (花生糊), tofu pudding (豆腐花), and almond pudding (杏仁花). Apart from these, it can get a bit exotic and can generally only be savoured at stand alone dessert stores or cafes. New spots are ever bubbling up in and around New York's Manhattan Chinatown, Brooklyn Chinatowns (Sunset Park, Avenue U), and Queen Chinatown (Flushing) for one to sample. Alternatively, one can always learn to make some at home.
For the Vietnamese, they can take their sweets a little, well, sweeter than the Chinese. One would never know that the mung bean is so disappointingly bland from tasting the insanely numerous selection of desserts it has been transformed into by the Vietnamese. Just the plethora of chès the mung bean has lend itself to is impressive. For example, there is the humble Mung Bean with Tapioca Pearls (Chè Đậu Xanh) at one end of the spectrum while, on the other end, the mouthful Mung Bean, Sweet Potato, Seaweed and Tapioca Pearls! Sweet sticky rice and coconut milk also pervade through many definitive chè recipes and hotchpotch concoctions.
I personally find Vietnamese chè a lick more addictive than Chinese tong sui to my waistline's detriment and health's distress. Compounding into this toxic brew is the near unfailing availability of it in my home. My mom, when she cooks, would whip up a five days' worth supply of a pot. Don't get me wrong, my tummy is very appreciative, especially since around the New York metro area, there aren't any chè stores nor food specialty shops that readily and consistently carries a fresh supply. Tan Tin-Hung Market only receives a fresh batch on Fridays (last I checked). Many of the banh mi (sandwich) shops sporadically stock some, such as Tan Thanh Bakery in Brooklyn. I'm waiting for the joyous day a chè cafe of the caliber of those found in the Eden Center in Falls Church, Virginia. Since it's just a hop, skip, and jump away from Washington, DC, whenever I venture down there via my $35 roundtrip bus ride, I always have to put aside time to go gawk and salivate over the trays after trays of complementing fragrant whiffs of sweet rice, coconut, banana, pandan leaves, cassava, sweet potatoes,...
I really can keep going, but instead I think I'm going to go have a bowl of Chè Đậu (Black Eyed Peas and Sweet Glutinous Rice in Coconut Milk) right now.
Black Sesame Seed Dessert Soup
芝麻糊
If you never had it good, you wouldn't crave it. This observation seems to ring deafeningly true with this particular Chinese tong sui- a sweet soup made of primarily black sesame seeds and glutinous rice. I vaguely recalled liking it a lot the handful of times I've had it growing up, but since it isn't a conveniently sighted or available food item on menus of restaurants , it was never on the forefront stimulating my appetite. But this past winter, due to the spiked bonding time I shared with one recently maternally-inclined cousin, that all changed.
You see, my cousin, filial as she is, visits her mother who lives right across the street from me, almost every weekend. Her mother, my aunt, discovered a storefront near her workplace, where an enviable selection of soup desserts are sold. After trying a few out, she became a dependable patron of the black sesame seed variety. Well, needless to say, she aggressively introduced ,like all Asian mothers do, her dear daughter to this sweet treat, who in turn subsequently mentions it sporadically in our conversations.Given my curiosity and love of food, of course I sought out this place. Given my curiosity and love of food, of course I sought out other places for comparison of the same ware. The conclusion: I was not impressed. I wasn't sure if I just didn't care for the dish or I keep getting inferior specimen- too gray, too gruely, too gritty. My last resort- try making it myself.
It is relatively labor intensive, but only because I didn't have the convenience of a grinder. For those of you who do, the process will be a whiz. Either way, I highly recommend this dessert. And if my one recommendation means squat, the conventional believe is eating lots of black sesame seeds will give you shiny luscious hair. I'm just passing the word along...
Ingredients
• 1 ¾ cup white glutinous rice (1 ½ cup if also using black glutinous rice)- wash and soak at least 20 minutes
• ¼ cup black glutinous rice (optional)- wash and soak at least 20 minutes
• 2 cups black sesame seeds- toast, grind to a powder (by mortar and pestle or spice grinder) and soak.
• Rock sugar- Start with 1 big rock (about size of handball) and taste for sweetness. If using brown sugar, start with ¾ cup.
• Filtered or spring water for soaking and cooking liquid
Equipment
• 1 medium pot, 1 large pot or 2 large pots
• fine mesh strainer
Directions
1. Grind the soaked glutinous rice in blender or spice grinder as smooth as possible.
2. Cook the ground rice in 4 cups of water to a boil in a medium-sized pot on a flame distrubuter/muter (if you have one) then turn heat down to a simmer. Stir frequently so the rice doesn’t clump and burn at the bottom of the pot.
3. Add the soaked black sesame seed powder. Add more filtered water to thin out the mixture.
4. Stir the rice and seed mixture frequently to prevent clumping and burning.
5. Cook for another 10-25 minutes to release the flavors of the ingredients, then strain everything through a fine mesh into a large pot over low fire scraping down the mixture through the mesh.
6. Pour all the solids that didn’t strain through back into the blender to blend again to a smooth paste. Add a little water as needed to help the blending process.
7. Restrain the blended mixture into the large pot. Add some more water through the strainer to ease the straining process.
8. Anything that can’t be strain this time around can be trashed.
9. Add the rock or brown sugar.
10. Simmer the soup down until the sugar is melted and the consistency is a slightly thickened gruel; this may take about 5-7 minutes over low heat. Stir the content to prevent clumps and worse, burned clumps, from forming at the bottom of the pot. The finished consistency we’re looking for is something that pours easily off the spoon but still coats it.
This is best served hot.
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