Quay Po Cooks: ginkgo nuts

Showing posts with label ginkgo nuts. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Barley ginkgo nut with foo chuk & quail eggs dessert - Featured in Group Recipes

The Cantonese speaking Chinese call their sweet soup dessert “tong sui”. There is a wide variety of tong sui in Malaysia. There are stores that devote themselves just to selling different types of sweet soups. We do not have a specific time to take “tong sui”, some people even take it for supper but in the Chinese restaurants, they usually served “tong sui” at the end of a meal as dessert. Traditionally, sweet soup is usually served hot but like things changes with time, nowadays, it can be served hot or cold. For me, having a bowl of ice cold barley ginkgo nuts, foo chuk sweet soup is divine especially when the weather is so hot here.

Featured on Asian Food Channel (Official) Facebook

on 16th July 2012

Ingredients:

20 gm barley

20 pcs ginkgo nuts, remove shell and skin
2 sheets of foo chuk (flat sheet type)

4 pcs pandan leaves

rock sugar (up to individual taste)

1.2 litre water

8 hard boiled quail eggs, remove shell (optional)

1 egg white

Note: Please mention to the vendor that you want the flat sheet type of foo chuk and is for making "tong sui" because they have various kind of foo chuk and if you buy the wrong type it will not dissolve easily.

Method:

Add water, barley and ginkgo nuts and pandan leaves into the pot and bring it boil. Turn heat to medium and let it boil till ginkgo nuts are soft, about 30 to 35 mins. Add foo chuk and sugar and boil till sugar dissolved and foo chuk is broken up, about 15 mins. Lightly whisk egg white and pour in slowly and stir at the same time. Turn off heat and remove the pandan leaves. Can be serve hot or cold.

A LITTLE ABOUT THIS QUAY PO

Before I was married to my "Quay Lo" (Guaylo) husband, I did not know how to bake or cook. Subsequently I learned some baking and cooking Western cuisine from him, and providing his food for him launched an interest in cooking in general. Many of my Chinese friends and family told me that "Quay" is the wrong spelling for devil in Cantonese. The right spelling should be "Kwai" or "Guay". Well, somehow I like the spelling "Quay" better although I have to agree that it does not sound very Cantonese. Try asking a Westerner to pronounce "Kwai" and you will probably hear "Quay" haha. Whether is "Quay" or "Kwai" or "Guay, just know the devil woman is me when you see Quay Po Cooks. My hubby said if people pronounce "Quay" as "Key" is even better because I am the key to his heart. LOL!

Only now, have I started to learn the traditional Cantonese cuisine of my Mum. She cooks fabulously and all her specialties are divine. These two interests, my husband's Western food, and my mother's traditional food, prompted me to document them so they will not be lost.

Here, I wish to share my cooking and baking experience with my readers. I also hope to inspire those who do not know how to cook or bake to do so because, trust me, if I can, you can too.

Something I'd like to mention is that I find that many people are rather unwilling to share their recipes. However, for me, I think differently. I think good recipes should be shared thus allowing as many people to enjoy it as possible. Unless those recipes are for doing business, I don't see why we want to keep them all to ourselves. So if you are generous in sharing your recipes, you are welcome to share on my blog. Send the recipes to me and better still with pictures of the final products and I will be very happy to post them them with credits to you of course.

Our cuisine is a deeply embedded part of our culture. When two cultures come together under the same roof the results in the kitchen can sometimes be comedic, sometimes confrontational, but more often it is a journey full of surprises and discovery. There is joy in our food. If we think upon this, it is intuitively obvious. This blog is a journey of joy and sharing, reflecting what the French like to call "joie de vivre" (joy of living). No one could be more different from one another then my husband and my mother. Yet one thing they share in common is knowing intuitively that food, cooking, and sharing can be avenues of joy in life itself. So herein, help yourself, to a little joy and , if you like it, share it with your own family and friends. Joy is something that should be shared.