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Tuesday 1 January 2013

Sweet Seaweed Soup with Red Dates and Longan





Happy New Year everyone! I hope you can look back at 2012 with fondness at the good things that have happened, and learned from the not-so-good things that took place.  Indeed we look forward to better things in 2013 - good health and safety, successes and achievements, more great recipes (mustn't forget that!) and for us Christians, a closer walk with Jesus. 

Righto! I thought it would be nice symbolically to start my first post on the first day of this new year with something sweet - a classic Chinese sweet soup/"tong sui" with red dates, dried longan and seaweed. 

You might ask - seaweed?

Yeah, think of it as a more cost effective alternative to bird nest ;P  Beauty food really - packed with calcium and collagen.  I recently did another post on using this white seaweed from East Malaysia - check it out here




Sweet Seaweed Soup with Red Dates and Longan

  • 120g seaweed, rinsed weight (very small handful is sufficient, it will expand once soaked)
  • 20 jumbo red dates, deseeded
  • 1/2 cup dried longan, rinsed
  • 200g rock cane sugar
  • 1.8 litre filtered water

1.  Soak the seaweed for about 3 hours, changing water 3-4 times until there is no briny or fishy smell.  Snip into short pieces.

2.  Bring the water to a boil, add in the red dates and longan and turn down to simmer for about 30min.  Use the back of a ladle to flatten the red dates to release more flavour.

3.  Add the cane sugar and simmer until it has completed melted.

4.  Finally add the seaweed, bring to a quick boil and switch off the fire.  Let the soup rest for about 15min before serving.


21 comments:

  1. Happy New Year, Esther!
    Love to have this sweet soup to start off the New Year day :)

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  2. Hi Esther, glad to have known you this year. Happy New Year to you and your family x

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  3. Oh....I would loves to have one bowl now.....just loves dessert soup. So refreshing.

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    Replies
    1. Yea, tong sui is such a comforting and refreshing item.

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  4. So refreshing and soothing. The longan adds a wonderful taste.

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    1. I love to add lots of longan,but my mum tells me it is "heaty" so i had to scale back haha

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  5. HI Esther! The seaweed looks like hashima! Always like a bowl of Tung Shui after a heavy Chinese dinner...

    A sweet start to the new year!

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    1. Yea, it kinda look like suet kap doesn it? Bt honestly suet kap taste nicer hehe, but this has more calcium.

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  6. HI Esther,
    Happy New Year to you and your family! What a nice way to start the year, may it bring along lots of sweetness for this year :)

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    1. Hi Adeline, haha yes lets start the year on a sweet note :)

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  7. Very refreshing soup and seaweed is a surprising ingredient! Agree with Chef, it does look like what they call "frog saliva".

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    1. Yea, kinda doesnt it? Thats one of the recommended recipe using the seaweed.

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  8. Hi Esther, very nice, sweet and delicious for a good start to a new year.

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  9. Esther, this looks amazing, unlike anything I've ever seen. Do you eat it for dessert or as an appetizer or ........?

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    1. Chris, yes we take the soup as a dessert :) its very light and nourishing, best taken warm.

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  10. YUM! I love tong sui. It's so light and refreshing but still satisfies my sweet tooth! Not sure what seaweed it is that you use, but I often do a variation using white fungus instead, but should taste almost exactly the same though!

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    1. Exactly, light yet satisfy the sweet tooth. I use the white seaweed from East Malaysia. Can certainly sub with whitefungus too. Taste wise, both are actually tasteless, but texture is totally different.

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