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.