Hey guys, a few notes: 1. So Steph started using mulled spices in her sweet potato Tong Sui after our buddy Rob gifted us a big box from an orchard outside of New York called "Salinger's Orchard". You can use any mulled spices you like, just toss in one teabag's worth in with the sweet potato as its cooking, and remove before you add the sugar. 2. I know that "a half an egg" is a little bit of an awkward quantity for the water chestnut soup, we just wanted to keep everything around 2 servings for each soup. Feel free to double the recipe. 3. On that note, as Steph said in the video, a good idea for the red bean - if you're planning on making it often - is freezing a whole batch. If you're working from frozen beans, use 160g of frozen beans for this recipe (~80g per serving). 4. So while I (Chris) like Tong Sui, I'm definitely not as passionate as Steph is on the topic lol (my favorite Cantonese Tong Sui is Shunde double skinned milk, which we'll do a recipe for one of these days). I've met a number of other expats in China, and while almost none of them are really all that into Tong Sui... my recommendation is that if you have a Cantonese SO, at least learn the sweet potato one. It's always a nice thing to quickly whip up if your SO's having a bad day or whatever. Ok, that's all I can think of for now. Subtitles are a little slow this morning (Steph goes off script a lot haha), will be out in an hour or two.
Surprised to see Chinese cuisine has this too! The Filipino versions of this are ginataan, binignit, and bilo-bilo, but we mostly use coconut milk for the base of all of these sweet soups. They include tapioca pearls, 'mochi' balls, pandan leaves, ube (purple yam), taro, sweet potato, jackfruit, yams, sweet red beans just like the Cantonese version. I remember living in Japan before there's also the red bean soup too which they serve in winter. I honestly didn't even think that all of this originated in Southern China, neither did I know other Asian countries beyond Philippines and Japan had this. Very interesting to see the similarities and differences. I learned a lot. I think the nearest thing the Westerners have to our tongsui/sweet soup desserts is rice pudding perhaps? :)
Yeah, going around southeast Asia is a always a great "sweet soup" journey. Though I don't think "all of this originated in Southern China", to me it feels like people living in hot climate just craves some cool sweet drinks that can also provide you some energy with add-ins haha, plus the abundance of fruits. -Steph
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Considering how Southeast Asians today trace most of their ancestry back to Neolithic Yangtze River populations then it may have actually originated in what is now southern China. Just like how rice ultimately originated at the Yangtze River but was transferred all across Asia over thousands of years (and then the world).
The closest thing my family has to a dessert soup is something we call Na Vaam, which if I understand correctly is a Hmong loan word for "dessert", which is kinda weird since my family has had very limited interactions with the Hmong people. In any rate, the "broth" is sweetened coconut milk that has been boiled with pandan leaves and served cold, and the fillings(?) include tapioca pearls, pearled water chestnuts boiled in syrup, jellies in the shape of slivers, jellies in the shape of silkworm larvae, and sometimes when we're feeling decadent, pieces of extra ripe jackfruit. Since it's kind of a pain to make, we don't have it often, but at every family event, there's a huge vat of the stuff that we greedily suck down after a meal.
I looked it up (Google corrected it to Naab Vaam) and it looks so good! I can see why it's so much work, the photos I'm seeing are very Instagram looking where all the coloured tapioca is in layers but even without that making the different shapes looks like a lot of labour! So pretty and delicious!
Steph hits the nail on the head with how sweet (and heavy) Western desserts can be 😅 I remember craving for a bowl of sweet corn soup (“chè ngô”) so badly when I first moved to the US In Vietnam we have a tons of variation on this as well, from beans (red, black, mung beans) to fruits (grapefruit, jackfruit) and flowers (jasmine, lotus) etc.
This made me realise that my favorite western dessert is a cup of coffee with milk amd sugat. I don't really get how people manage to feel full after a meal and then want half a dozen of cookies with their tea.
MY polish boyfriend told me about a milk fruit soup he had growing up. It sounds kinda similar and as refreshing. Its beautiful to see where multiple cultures had similar ideas.
Steph, you said it right! It's a cultural institution, even here in Malaysia. I love roadside tong sui. Soothes the soul and so many options! Here we have the popular Bubur Cha Cha, a coconut based sweet soup with sweet potato, taro, sago and others. Perfect afternoon snack, served with fried banana fritters, also found in the same roadside cart!
the red bean sweet soup reminds me of this dessert we have in dominican republic thats called habichuelas con dulce (which literally translates to beans with sweet/sugar) its usually made with cinnamon sticks, allspice and milk to make it thicker. its very yummy but usually only served during easter. im glad to know that so many countries have food like this!
My grandma did the best red bean (hoong dao) tong sui. She used a lot of nuts and flavored it with dried orange peel. Though I do like the toasted black sesame seed, almond, peanut, and walnut tong siu. I've never been able to do any of those properly if I toast the sesame seeds myself.
I’ve had the sweet potato one in a Montréal Chinatown restaurant years ago and still remember it, because it struck me as such a simple yet balanced kind of desert/snack. It was both refreshing and sweet, chewy and syrupy. I have to admit I tried redoing it based on taste alone and failed, but I’m glad this came on the feed.
I'm so excited about these should thank you for sharing. You guys do the best stuff! A lighter refreshing dessert is THE best as we head into the spring time in North America. Can't wait to try these out!
In Sweden we have sort of a similar sweet soup/jelly, generally I find that older people make it. We call them fruit soup or specifically (random fruit or berry) cream. My favorite is gooseberry cream or rhubarb cream these are a bit thicker though almost like a fresh/hot jam
I'm glad you speak Cantonese in your video. My mom and dad always told me not to forget our heritage and now that they are gone, I'm looking everywhere to learn about what I denied for so long when I was younger. Cheers to make more videos in Cantonese like the channel @Made With Lau. :)
Sweet soups are a big thing in some European countries, too, especially in the North and East! Scandinavia and northern Germany has elderberry soup, Sweden the famous Rose Hip Soup and other Froktsoppa, Hungary has a bunch of staple sweet soups toom
Going to give freezing red beans a try! I've cooked adzuki beans on several occasions and it always takes forever, even when I follow all the steps, soak overnight, etc. This method seems like it would help!
@@emmereffing Unfortunately I only have regular pots and pans and it usually takes me ~2h to get them cooked properly although I could be remembering wrong since it's been a while. I appreciate the advice though!
I adore this kind of dessert, as far as western desserts I could eat every day... there are none. I will eat them sure but I will eat perhaps 20 a year and 7 of those are for holidays. Things like this though, I could eat hundreds in a year. They taste like something that is not sugar-coated sugar. For the sweet potato, I add cayenne or any hot spicy pepper, as well as black cardamom just for the flex of having a flavour nobody can identify.
When I saw the title, I immediately thought of the Philippine Champorado, which is a chocolate rice porridge typically served for breakfast alongside dried fish. I'm glad though that you mentioned Samalamig and Ginataan from the Philippines! Samalamig is widely considered a drink here, but then again, it typically is served with sago and gulaman (jelly), so I guess it also counts as a sweet, cold soup (that I prefer to drink as I munch on fishballs from sidewalk vendors, haha!). Excellent video as always!
my personal favourite are the staple for post-HK BBQ back in the 70's-80's. the 白果腐竹雞蛋薏米糖水 (ginkgo beancurd-skin boiled eggs pearl barley tongsui). it's a mouthful, but out of the exhaustive list of tongsui, this is probably the most refreshing and "light" in flavour for summer BBQ parties(not necessarily in calories). but especially during humid and cold winter days, that sweet potato and ginger one is also really good. and i like mung bean tongsui (綠豆沙) as well.
I love learning about dishes like this, because it's so simple but also so fundamentally different than how we tend to approach ingredients in Western cooking. Sweet beans would make so many Americans balk, and yet, it sounds perfectly delicious as well as being a healthy way to approach a dessert/snack. So understanding dishes like this really helps to expand my repertoire as a cook. Thanks for the amazing content!
Yes, please more of these sweet soups! I'm from Vietnam but have only visited there briefly. My trips have made me fall in love with che but I am too chicken to try all the various varieties from street vendors due to my delicate stomach. :( Would love to see the varieties and regional differences to this sort of dish in China!
Love sweet soup! Thank you for showing how to make these classics. Water chestnut is great! My favourites are old school like gingko nut, barley and beancurd and “tofu fa”. Looking forward to future videos!
Sweet potato ginger soup is my go-to for when I have a cold. It's so refreshing, nostalgic and uplifting, and I can really go nuts with the ginger to open up my sinuses 😂 This video is amazing in elucidating why my caucasian SO and I (Singaporean Chinese) can have such different preferences for dessert. Eating cake after a big feast is a bit torturous to me
Fun Sugar Fact: the brown sugar you buy in stores is literally white sugar with molasses added. So you can make it yourself at home mixing the two together.
Such a useless tip, not only is it difficult to mix molasses and white sugar evenly, different brown sugars will have different tastes depending on the process they are made, and it is a taste that molasses can't always replicate.
This freezing technique works for lots of stuff. Its a great way to increase the volume of juice you get from something that's not particularly "juicy".
I'm from Houston; nothing hits the spot on a hot humid day like sweet soup ☺️ or Taiwanese shaved iced. Or sweet soup topped with shaved ice, which I had once in Montrose 👌🏻
The different between _nam khaeng sai_ and _kaeng buat_ in Thailand is the temperature. _Nam khaeng sai_ or Thai shaved ice is served ice cold. _Kaeng buat_ , however, is served either warm or room temperature. It is cooked in coconut milk, usually sweetened by white cane sugar. One can use coconut sugar or brown sugar, but the coconut milk will then turn brown. _Nam khaeng sai_ is also close to Thai-style coconum milk ice-cream because both are served with "bottomings" such as sweetcorn, nata de coco, Chinese black grass jelly, etc and then topped either with shaved ice and syrup (in _nam khaeng sai_ ) or ice-cream. There is another type called _wan yen_ (literally "sweet and cold") which you can choose you bottomings, again, and then topped with coconut milk or syrup and then ice. Meanwhile, _kaeng buat_ is also similar to _kluai buat chi_ and _thua khiao tom nam tan_ , with the latter being closer to this Tang Sui. _Kluai buat chi_ is banana cooked in sweetened coconut milk as well. Meanwhile, _thua khiao tom nam tan_ literally means "mung beans boiled (with) sugar". It is cooked in water, not coconut milk.
Some indian stores sell powdered jaggery as well! It’s the same as the big lump, but in a consistency similar to sugar. Mine says ‘punjabi shakkar’ on it
I'm so excited to see sweet soups in Chinese cuisine! It's so different from sweet soups as I know them like elder berry soup and apple soup. Definitely gonna try Tong Sui myself.
I don’t usually like sweet soups but I had a coconut and sweet potato one in Malaysia that was amazing, I also like the tong yuan ginger and pandan one!
❤ Love the idea of a cold refreshing sweet soup not something I ever seen or considered but it sounds fantastic and I will definitely be trying these and any future recipes you will share this coming summer! Thank you two so much for sharing all these yummy recipes!
Thanks for sharing! I am so excited to see a tongsui episode on your channel! Ever since lockdowns started, I had to learn how to make tongsui because we couldn't get them through food delivery services, and my mum and elderly neighbour really like tongsui. A classic in this neighbourhood is the soft jelly-like snow fungus with dried longan and red dates, but my mum also enjoys a new recipe I found that uses apples, pears, honey dates, longan, sweet almonds and peach gum. Part of me thinks she likes the peach gum because TCM says it counts as collagen!
This brings me back to my childhood. I've had all three of these variants, but today I decided to look up one that wasn't included and I feel blessed knowing just a little more. I haven't figured out what it's called yet, but it's the one with tapioca pearls and a white soup.
Freezing the beans sounds like genius. Adzuki beans are kind of difficult to get tender. I'm a vegan and it has always been a puzzle to me why adzuki beans are never on the legumes menu. Like, never! I can't remember a vegan recipe using adzuki beans. I cook mine in an instant pot, but even with soaking, it is still hard to get them evenly tender. I think this freezing trick might make them more appealing. Am off to soak adzuki beans. They are so cute in salads and buddha bowls - much nicer than red kidney beans :)
Love seeing Tong Sui getting some recognition! I grew up with it and its so nice to be able to see a good red bean soup recipe. Can you do Malaysian sponge cake next?
The two most popular tongsui in Chinese restaurants in the Philippines are mango and sago pudding and almond jelly and lychee soup. I agree that this is usually the best way to end a heavy meal. Cakes for me are kind of like an after meal snack/ dessert (meaning something you eat 2 hours after you've had a complete meal, since you'll have a bit more space to accommodate something more filling)
Some of the higher end Cantonese restaurants where I am will serve a complimentary sweet soup after a family meal or banquet meal, the most common being tapioca pearls and taro pieces in a sweetened coconut milk broth.
Love that step to freeze the soaked red beans to soften it due to water expansion when it turns to ice. Found that I got better results to have these slowly freeze rather than 'flash' freezing. Your results may vary though.
Definitely recommend a small splash of coconut milk (mixed well or just swirls of it), it gives the red bean soup more depth and a creamier mouthfeel. Green beans, a mix of read and green, and adding glutinous rice are other variations. Its great cold as well (incoming pitchforks?). I really like hot creamy peanut soup.
I've been looking forward to this episode since I discovered your channel. I love che, which is the similar version like Steph said, and I love to see it from all over Asia! I'll make the red bean and sweet potatoes soup this week haha
I love tong sui and it's definitely a culinary institution! I love the trick of freezing the red beans because I've always thought that red bean soup was such a pain to make. Now that I own an instantpot it's actually super easy! My mother the other day bought me one of those kettle cookers that are all the rage now so that I would make and eat more dessert soups that are "healthy" haha. I'm curious to see you guys make a video on the various cooking gadgets that china's got floating around from soymilk makers to kettle cookers to automatic steamers, etc.
My favorite dessert ever is Tofu Pudding. idk if that counts as a sweet soup. I've had it in both Hong Kong and Viet Nam, so I am hoping its universal. I really hope you do a video on that one day!
6:58 I couldn’t stop focusing on your dog asking for attention and a pet lolll 🐶❤️☺️ so cuteee!! I had to rewind to pay attention to what you were saying 😅
@@matthewbrotman2907 thanks for the info! Well the dog knows if it nudges her arm or hand it’s going to get a pet ahahaa. I don’t blame the dog I mean who doesn’t like a bit of love and care 😂
When I was a child I loathe tongsui especially red bean soup. Saying that I will never want to drink this when I am older. My parents laughed. Now, here we are, me trying to learn how to make tongsui.
It Seems like a whole category of semi sweet and savory desert or snacks. As you went through the red bean soup in particular i was reminded of some western dishes that can be similar, but have a different cultural use. Im thinking any number of heavily sweetened side dishes used as snack or sides for BBQs or picnics. Sweet Baked Beans, corn and black bean salad, or even Sweet Potato casserole(with all the marshmallow), many varieties of pasta salad or potato salad can also take on this sweet role. The major difference being none of these are viewed as desserts.
As an American former pastry chef, I have to defend Western desserts slightly and say that, in my opinion, the best way to enjoy them is as...a meal. On its own. Either for breakfast or mid-afternoon with tea or coffee. Or, as an Austrian friend introduced to me, just straight up pastry for dinner. Agree completely that a heavy dessert after a heavy meal is a no-go. The Tong Sui sounds like something I would really like in the summer, after a night of drinking! I just love dessert in all forms I guess, lol.
I love western desserts! Straight up pastry for dinner sounds like a phenomenal idea... YES. I guess I just feel like people often compare Tong Sui against their favorite western dessert (and find it lacking), and I wanted to communicate the slightly different place it occupies :)
My almost local farmers market Mexican stall sells palm-sugar that is somewhere closer to maple-sugar (has an inner wetness to it). The Asian shops also sell palm sugars but in wider variety than the Mexican shop from press formed to granulated and from a wider selection of plants. The Indian and Pakistan stores all sell jaggery and this can be plain, light, dark, organic and even spiced (while a casual internet browse suggests this is cane sugar before the molasses is removed, there are many videos on youtube showing it's production from cane or palm juice). Brown sugar is refined white sugar from either sugar cane or sugar beats that has the molasses added back in for a very consistent result. These are not globally interchangeable too, for example, grapefruit with brown sugar is a pleasant experience, while with jaggery it just isn't.
If you're already in a Mexican grocery picking up piloncillo, turbinado sugar might make a good stand in for rock sugar since it is somewhere between raw sugar and white sugar. The ubiquitous brand in Mexican groceries is Zulka "Morena", though you often find it or other brands in other Latin-American groceries. Side note: I think "piloncillo" is exclusively a Mexican term. "Panela" is commonly used in Central America South America, though Mexicans are usually familiar with the term.
I am german and we used to have somthing cald kaltschale. basicly sweet cold soup that is usuly served in summer but it fell out of favour and thise days most people never even heard of it.
Im really looking forward future sweet soups videos! The closes thing we have is a thickened with starch berry "soup" - kissel, wich used to be really popular in summer. But tbh I'm not a big fan of cooked berries
So would the sweetened silken tofu served at dim sum restaurants stateside fall into the same category? I remember the first time I encountered it, it was a game changer for me.
![What's Cantonese HOME cooking like? [English Edition]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Ns8AtQVwrLY/mqdefault.jpg)
Hey guys, a few notes:
1. So Steph started using mulled spices in her sweet potato Tong Sui after our buddy Rob gifted us a big box from an orchard outside of New York called "Salinger's Orchard". You can use any mulled spices you like, just toss in one teabag's worth in with the sweet potato as its cooking, and remove before you add the sugar.
2. I know that "a half an egg" is a little bit of an awkward quantity for the water chestnut soup, we just wanted to keep everything around 2 servings for each soup. Feel free to double the recipe.
3. On that note, as Steph said in the video, a good idea for the red bean - if you're planning on making it often - is freezing a whole batch. If you're working from frozen beans, use 160g of frozen beans for this recipe (~80g per serving).
4. So while I (Chris) like Tong Sui, I'm definitely not as passionate as Steph is on the topic lol (my favorite Cantonese Tong Sui is Shunde double skinned milk, which we'll do a recipe for one of these days). I've met a number of other expats in China, and while almost none of them are really all that into Tong Sui... my recommendation is that if you have a Cantonese SO, at least learn the sweet potato one. It's always a nice thing to quickly whip up if your SO's having a bad day or whatever.
Ok, that's all I can think of for now. Subtitles are a little slow this morning (Steph goes off script a lot haha), will be out in an hour or two.
Anyone else watching the dog while listening?
I found him extremely cute, "mommy, give me love! hey!" paws at her arm.
Surprised to see Chinese cuisine has this too! The Filipino versions of this are ginataan, binignit, and bilo-bilo, but we mostly use coconut milk for the base of all of these sweet soups. They include tapioca pearls, 'mochi' balls, pandan leaves, ube (purple yam), taro, sweet potato, jackfruit, yams, sweet red beans just like the Cantonese version. I remember living in Japan before there's also the red bean soup too which they serve in winter. I honestly didn't even think that all of this originated in Southern China, neither did I know other Asian countries beyond Philippines and Japan had this. Very interesting to see the similarities and differences. I learned a lot. I think the nearest thing the Westerners have to our tongsui/sweet soup desserts is rice pudding perhaps? :)
Yeah, going around southeast Asia is a always a great "sweet soup" journey. Though I don't think "all of this originated in Southern China", to me it feels like people living in hot climate just craves some cool sweet drinks that can also provide you some energy with add-ins haha, plus the abundance of fruits.
-Steph
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Considering how Southeast Asians today trace most of their ancestry back to Neolithic Yangtze River populations then it may have actually originated in what is now southern China. Just like how rice ultimately originated at the Yangtze River but was transferred all across Asia over thousands of years (and then the world).
Being Chinese I thought it was only a Chinese dish....lol how ignorant?
Oatmeal, arguably? A somewhat thick soup (of sorts) often served with sugar, cinnamon, and dried fruits?
It is also a common dessert in Malaysia and Singapore.
Whoa, nelly! That trick of freezing the beans to shorten the cooking time might just be a game-changer!!! Thank you, guys, as always.
The closest thing my family has to a dessert soup is something we call Na Vaam, which if I understand correctly is a Hmong loan word for "dessert", which is kinda weird since my family has had very limited interactions with the Hmong people. In any rate, the "broth" is sweetened coconut milk that has been boiled with pandan leaves and served cold, and the fillings(?) include tapioca pearls, pearled water chestnuts boiled in syrup, jellies in the shape of slivers, jellies in the shape of silkworm larvae, and sometimes when we're feeling decadent, pieces of extra ripe jackfruit. Since it's kind of a pain to make, we don't have it often, but at every family event, there's a huge vat of the stuff that we greedily suck down after a meal.
That sounds good!
that sounds like a certain vietnamese dessert (i could be wrong about this tho so take it with a grain of salt)
@@hannah-vv9ru Probably, there's a couple cold coconut milk soups in SouthEast Asia. Apparently the Indonesians have something similar, too.
I looked it up (Google corrected it to Naab Vaam) and it looks so good! I can see why it's so much work, the photos I'm seeing are very Instagram looking where all the coloured tapioca is in layers but even without that making the different shapes looks like a lot of labour! So pretty and delicious!
Gut
Steph hits the nail on the head with how sweet (and heavy) Western desserts can be 😅 I remember craving for a bowl of sweet corn soup (“chè ngô”) so badly when I first moved to the US
In Vietnam we have a tons of variation on this as well, from beans (red, black, mung beans) to fruits (grapefruit, jackfruit) and flowers (jasmine, lotus) etc.
This made me realise that my favorite western dessert is a cup of coffee with milk amd sugat. I don't really get how people manage to feel full after a meal and then want half a dozen of cookies with their tea.
Grapefruit soup? That is interesting.
@@scottycheesecake search for “chè bưởi”
MY polish boyfriend told me about a milk fruit soup he had growing up. It sounds kinda similar and as refreshing. Its beautiful to see where multiple cultures had similar ideas.
Steph, you said it right! It's a cultural institution, even here in Malaysia. I love roadside tong sui. Soothes the soul and so many options! Here we have the popular Bubur Cha Cha, a coconut based sweet soup with sweet potato, taro, sago and others. Perfect afternoon snack, served with fried banana fritters, also found in the same roadside cart!
the red bean sweet soup reminds me of this dessert we have in dominican republic thats called habichuelas con dulce (which literally translates to beans with sweet/sugar) its usually made with cinnamon sticks, allspice and milk to make it thicker. its very yummy but usually only served during easter. im glad to know that so many countries have food like this!
My grandma did the best red bean (hoong dao) tong sui. She used a lot of nuts and flavored it with dried orange peel. Though I do like the toasted black sesame seed, almond, peanut, and walnut tong siu. I've never been able to do any of those properly if I toast the sesame seeds myself.
I’ve had the sweet potato one in a Montréal Chinatown restaurant years ago and still remember it, because it struck me as such a simple yet balanced kind of desert/snack. It was both refreshing and sweet, chewy and syrupy. I have to admit I tried redoing it based on taste alone and failed, but I’m glad this came on the feed.
I'm so excited about these should thank you for sharing. You guys do the best stuff! A lighter refreshing dessert is THE best as we head into the spring time in North America. Can't wait to try these out!
In Sweden we have sort of a similar sweet soup/jelly, generally I find that older people make it. We call them fruit soup or specifically (random fruit or berry) cream. My favorite is gooseberry cream or rhubarb cream these are a bit thicker though almost like a fresh/hot jam
I'm glad you speak Cantonese in your video. My mom and dad always told me not to forget our heritage and now that they are gone, I'm looking everywhere to learn about what I denied for so long when I was younger. Cheers to make more videos in Cantonese like the channel @Made With Lau. :)
Sweet soups are a big thing in some European countries, too, especially in the North and East! Scandinavia and northern Germany has elderberry soup, Sweden the famous Rose Hip Soup and other Froktsoppa, Hungary has a bunch of staple sweet soups toom
Going to give freezing red beans a try! I've cooked adzuki beans on several occasions and it always takes forever, even when I follow all the steps, soak overnight, etc. This method seems like it would help!
45 minutes in an instapot
@@emmereffing Unfortunately I only have regular pots and pans and it usually takes me ~2h to get them cooked properly although I could be remembering wrong since it's been a while. I appreciate the advice though!
This is such a great desert! You should also be able to get rock sugar at Indian stores, often sold as michri or rock candy
I adore this kind of dessert, as far as western desserts I could eat every day... there are none. I will eat them sure but I will eat perhaps 20 a year and 7 of those are for holidays. Things like this though, I could eat hundreds in a year. They taste like something that is not sugar-coated sugar. For the sweet potato, I add cayenne or any hot spicy pepper, as well as black cardamom just for the flex of having a flavour nobody can identify.
When I saw the title, I immediately thought of the Philippine Champorado, which is a chocolate rice porridge typically served for breakfast alongside dried fish. I'm glad though that you mentioned Samalamig and Ginataan from the Philippines! Samalamig is widely considered a drink here, but then again, it typically is served with sago and gulaman (jelly), so I guess it also counts as a sweet, cold soup (that I prefer to drink as I munch on fishballs from sidewalk vendors, haha!). Excellent video as always!
my personal favourite are the staple for post-HK BBQ back in the 70's-80's. the 白果腐竹雞蛋薏米糖水 (ginkgo beancurd-skin boiled eggs pearl barley tongsui). it's a mouthful, but out of the exhaustive list of tongsui, this is probably the most refreshing and "light" in flavour for summer BBQ parties(not necessarily in calories).
but especially during humid and cold winter days, that sweet potato and ginger one is also really good. and i like mung bean tongsui (綠豆沙) as well.
I love learning about dishes like this, because it's so simple but also so fundamentally different than how we tend to approach ingredients in Western cooking. Sweet beans would make so many Americans balk, and yet, it sounds perfectly delicious as well as being a healthy way to approach a dessert/snack. So understanding dishes like this really helps to expand my repertoire as a cook. Thanks for the amazing content!
Yes, please more of these sweet soups! I'm from Vietnam but have only visited there briefly. My trips have made me fall in love with che but I am too chicken to try all the various varieties from street vendors due to my delicate stomach. :( Would love to see the varieties and regional differences to this sort of dish in China!
I'm so in love with their adorable dog, the polite pats 😭😭😭❤️
I've been eating ginataan and these types of desserts all my life. It never occurred to me to think of them as soup! I'm digging it.
If that's the case, then the saba con yelo and mais con yelo would also be soups.
Love sweet soup! Thank you for showing how to make these classics. Water chestnut is great! My favourites are old school like gingko nut, barley and beancurd and “tofu fa”. Looking forward to future videos!
I always liked it because you get all these little treats in one.
I would love to see more tong sui! I love them so much, but all ingredients required have gotten more expensive :(
The other two don't look that appetizing to me, but the ginger-sweet potato soup looks like something I'd definitely want to try.
Steph has gotten really good at hosting, also this is interesting, i should try the sweet potato variant since its so simple
The freezing bean trick is so clever! Thank you for sharing that!
Can't wait for more sweet soups!
Damn, the dry fry bit with the sweet potato tong sui really makes a difference!
Would love to see more sweet recipes
Sweet potato ginger soup is my go-to for when I have a cold. It's so refreshing, nostalgic and uplifting, and I can really go nuts with the ginger to open up my sinuses 😂
This video is amazing in elucidating why my caucasian SO and I (Singaporean Chinese) can have such different preferences for dessert. Eating cake after a big feast is a bit torturous to me
Fun Sugar Fact: the brown sugar you buy in stores is literally white sugar with molasses added. So you can make it yourself at home mixing the two together.
Thanks, Adam Ragusea
Such a useless tip, not only is it difficult to mix molasses and white sugar evenly, different brown sugars will have different tastes depending on the process they are made, and it is a taste that molasses can't always replicate.
there's also different kinds of molasses. And of course unrefined brown sugar like Demerara or Turbinado doesn't have molasses mixed in.
The "cut and crack" technique for sweet potatoes makes so much sense, yet I'd never have thought it up myself!
This freezing technique works for lots of stuff. Its a great way to increase the volume of juice you get from something that's not particularly "juicy".
My grandpa use to make this when I was a kid, haven’t tried this in 11 years
I'm from Houston; nothing hits the spot on a hot humid day like sweet soup ☺️ or Taiwanese shaved iced. Or sweet soup topped with shaved ice, which I had once in Montrose 👌🏻
The different between _nam khaeng sai_ and _kaeng buat_ in Thailand is the temperature. _Nam khaeng sai_ or Thai shaved ice is served ice cold. _Kaeng buat_ , however, is served either warm or room temperature. It is cooked in coconut milk, usually sweetened by white cane sugar. One can use coconut sugar or brown sugar, but the coconut milk will then turn brown.
_Nam khaeng sai_ is also close to Thai-style coconum milk ice-cream because both are served with "bottomings" such as sweetcorn, nata de coco, Chinese black grass jelly, etc and then topped either with shaved ice and syrup (in _nam khaeng sai_ ) or ice-cream. There is another type called _wan yen_ (literally "sweet and cold") which you can choose you bottomings, again, and then topped with coconut milk or syrup and then ice.
Meanwhile, _kaeng buat_ is also similar to _kluai buat chi_ and _thua khiao tom nam tan_ , with the latter being closer to this Tang Sui. _Kluai buat chi_ is banana cooked in sweetened coconut milk as well. Meanwhile, _thua khiao tom nam tan_ literally means "mung beans boiled (with) sugar". It is cooked in water, not coconut milk.
Grew up with Tong Sui being available, but never cared for it warm. I always found the flavors and textures better once child in the fridge.
Looks delicious !! Thanks for sharing ;-) Reminds me my blueberry soup recipe.
Yes love Steph voice overs! Great vids will have to try all the soups
Some indian stores sell powdered jaggery as well! It’s the same as the big lump, but in a consistency similar to sugar. Mine says ‘punjabi shakkar’ on it
Thankyou! I am looking forward to your sweet soup adventures.
Me: "This is similar to ginataan, yes?"
(Steph mentions ginataan)
Me: "Yep."
That said, I have tried red bean soup somewhere in Hong Kong.
I'm so excited to see sweet soups in Chinese cuisine! It's so different from sweet soups as I know them like elder berry soup and apple soup. Definitely gonna try Tong Sui myself.
Looking forward to more of these! I had a walnut one years ago that came with lotus seeds. It was so refreshing after a huge meal!
0:30 cute doggo wants attention
I don’t usually like sweet soups but I had a coconut and sweet potato one in Malaysia that was amazing, I also like the tong yuan ginger and pandan one!
❤ Love the idea of a cold refreshing sweet soup not something I ever seen or considered but it sounds fantastic and I will definitely be trying these and any future recipes you will share this coming summer!
Thank you two so much for sharing all these yummy recipes!
I'm familiar with the red bean version of this. Caribbean/Dominican families have Habichuelas con Dulce which is very similar.
kelp and mung bean soup （海带綠豆糖水） and black sesame soup （黑芝麻糊） are my favorite 😌
Going out for tong sui was a common activity in my youth! I love eating all the dishes with sago and fruits! 😋
Hooray!! I am really looking forward to seeing your future videos! Thank you!!
Thanks for sharing! I am so excited to see a tongsui episode on your channel! Ever since lockdowns started, I had to learn how to make tongsui because we couldn't get them through food delivery services, and my mum and elderly neighbour really like tongsui. A classic in this neighbourhood is the soft jelly-like snow fungus with dried longan and red dates, but my mum also enjoys a new recipe I found that uses apples, pears, honey dates, longan, sweet almonds and peach gum. Part of me thinks she likes the peach gum because TCM says it counts as collagen!
The dog is so cute 😍😍😍😍🥰🥰🥰🥰
This brings me back to my childhood. I've had all three of these variants, but today I decided to look up one that wasn't included and I feel blessed knowing just a little more. I haven't figured out what it's called yet, but it's the one with tapioca pearls and a white soup.
I LOVE these desserts.
Freezing the beans sounds like genius. Adzuki beans are kind of difficult to get tender. I'm a vegan and it has always been a puzzle to me why adzuki beans are never on the legumes menu. Like, never! I can't remember a vegan recipe using adzuki beans. I cook mine in an instant pot, but even with soaking, it is still hard to get them evenly tender. I think this freezing trick might make them more appealing. Am off to soak adzuki beans. They are so cute in salads and buddha bowls - much nicer than red kidney beans :)
Great video! Very nice and thanks for sharing! Big like!
Love seeing Tong Sui getting some recognition! I grew up with it and its so nice to be able to see a good red bean soup recipe. Can you do Malaysian sponge cake next?
Mango pomelo sago
, the ultimate tong sui
The two most popular tongsui in Chinese restaurants in the Philippines are mango and sago pudding and almond jelly and lychee soup. I agree that this is usually the best way to end a heavy meal. Cakes for me are kind of like an after meal snack/ dessert (meaning something you eat 2 hours after you've had a complete meal, since you'll have a bit more space to accommodate something more filling)
In Indonesia we have similar this called kolak, mostly served when ramadhan.
i make the sweet potato tong sui all the time, and growing up i had the one with mung beans often.
excited to see more of this topic !!
My dad and I used to love the red bean soup at the hot pot place we used to go to!
The sweet potato and ginger tongsui sounds like exactly what I need to make when I have the midnight munchies
Some of the higher end Cantonese restaurants where I am will serve a complimentary sweet soup after a family meal or banquet meal, the most common being tapioca pearls and taro pieces in a sweetened coconut milk broth.
Always informative, always entertaining. That puppers, however, is a total video-bomber! 😆
Love that step to freeze the soaked red beans to soften it due to water expansion when it turns to ice. Found that I got better results to have these slowly freeze rather than 'flash' freezing. Your results may vary though.
Definitely recommend a small splash of coconut milk (mixed well or just swirls of it), it gives the red bean soup more depth and a creamier mouthfeel.
Green beans, a mix of read and green, and adding glutinous rice are other variations. Its great cold as well (incoming pitchforks?). I really like hot creamy peanut soup.
walnut paste soup is a real cozy one
I've been looking forward to this episode since I discovered your channel. I love che, which is the similar version like Steph said, and I love to see it from all over Asia! I'll make the red bean and sweet potatoes soup this week haha
I love tong sui and it's definitely a culinary institution! I love the trick of freezing the red beans because I've always thought that red bean soup was such a pain to make. Now that I own an instantpot it's actually super easy! My mother the other day bought me one of those kettle cookers that are all the rage now so that I would make and eat more dessert soups that are "healthy" haha. I'm curious to see you guys make a video on the various cooking gadgets that china's got floating around from soymilk makers to kettle cookers to automatic steamers, etc.
My favorite dessert ever is Tofu Pudding. idk if that counts as a sweet soup. I've had it in both Hong Kong and Viet Nam, so I am hoping its universal. I really hope you do a video on that one day!
Yeah, that's tongsui too, you can get it at the same shops~
I love the dog❤
Ok, but what did Steph give the dog to stop them from pawing? Love that lil beasty ❤️
cheese probably
6:58 I couldn’t stop focusing on your dog asking for attention and a pet lolll 🐶❤️☺️ so cuteee!! I had to rewind to pay attention to what you were saying 😅
It’s a recurring theme in these videos. The dog doesn’t seem to understand “Mom is busy/媽媽很忙“.
@@matthewbrotman2907 thanks for the info! Well the dog knows if it nudges her arm or hand it’s going to get a pet ahahaa. I don’t blame the dog I mean who doesn’t like a bit of love and care 😂
These look delicious. Well, the egg one not so much 😯 But the red bean and the sweet potato look delicious. Excited to see more versions.
It would be interesting too if you can compare the same sweet soup from different regions or countries.
When I was a child I loathe tongsui especially red bean soup. Saying that I will never want to drink this when I am older. My parents laughed.
Now, here we are, me trying to learn how to make tongsui.
i love your dog's little beard so much
It Seems like a whole category of semi sweet and savory desert or snacks. As you went through the red bean soup in particular i was reminded of some western dishes that can be similar, but have a different cultural use. Im thinking any number of heavily sweetened side dishes used as snack or sides for BBQs or picnics. Sweet Baked Beans, corn and black bean salad, or even Sweet Potato casserole(with all the marshmallow), many varieties of pasta salad or potato salad can also take on this sweet role. The major difference being none of these are viewed as desserts.
Your dog is so darn cute!
As an American former pastry chef, I have to defend Western desserts slightly and say that, in my opinion, the best way to enjoy them is as...a meal. On its own. Either for breakfast or mid-afternoon with tea or coffee. Or, as an Austrian friend introduced to me, just straight up pastry for dinner. Agree completely that a heavy dessert after a heavy meal is a no-go. The Tong Sui sounds like something I would really like in the summer, after a night of drinking! I just love dessert in all forms I guess, lol.
I love western desserts! Straight up pastry for dinner sounds like a phenomenal idea... YES. I guess I just feel like people often compare Tong Sui against their favorite western dessert (and find it lacking), and I wanted to communicate the slightly different place it occupies :)
My almost local farmers market Mexican stall sells palm-sugar that is somewhere closer to maple-sugar (has an inner wetness to it). The Asian shops also sell palm sugars but in wider variety than the Mexican shop from press formed to granulated and from a wider selection of plants. The Indian and Pakistan stores all sell jaggery and this can be plain, light, dark, organic and even spiced (while a casual internet browse suggests this is cane sugar before the molasses is removed, there are many videos on youtube showing it's production from cane or palm juice). Brown sugar is refined white sugar from either sugar cane or sugar beats that has the molasses added back in for a very consistent result. These are not globally interchangeable too, for example, grapefruit with brown sugar is a pleasant experience, while with jaggery it just isn't.
Hi you can use "quail" eggs instead of cutting the hens egg into half which can make the soup cloudy.
Nice peeler, seemed to work quite well.
I forking love this dog
Love you guys. Keep up the great work
If you're already in a Mexican grocery picking up piloncillo, turbinado sugar might make a good stand in for rock sugar since it is somewhere between raw sugar and white sugar. The ubiquitous brand in Mexican groceries is Zulka "Morena", though you often find it or other brands in other Latin-American groceries.
Side note: I think "piloncillo" is exclusively a Mexican term. "Panela" is commonly used in Central America South America, though Mexicans are usually familiar with the term.
Thank you very interesting and helpful ♥️👍
0:10 dog: "FEEEEEEEED MEEEEEE!!!!"
You can also find jaggery (raw sugar) in South Asian stores (Indian, Pakistani, Nepalese, etc)
I am german and we used to have somthing cald kaltschale. basicly sweet cold soup that is usuly served in summer but it fell out of favour and thise days most people never even heard of it.
your dog is so cute, pawing your arm for pets
Red Bean soup yessss gimme more of those pleaseee
Im really looking forward future sweet soups videos! The closes thing we have is a thickened with starch berry "soup" - kissel, wich used to be really popular in summer. But tbh I'm not a big fan of cooked berries
So would the sweetened silken tofu served at dim sum restaurants stateside fall into the same category? I remember the first time I encountered it, it was a game changer for me.
Yep, same category :)
Ah yes, es campur in Indonesia. Always my guilty pleasure somewhat.