Cool off this summer with homemade lotus tea

Cool

On hot summer days, every afternoon, Ms. Nguyen Thi Huyen Trang in Cong Hoa ward (Chi Linh city, Hai Duong ) goes into the kitchen and cooks lotus seed sweet soup for the whole family to "cool down".

Each bowl of lotus seed sweet soup, shimmering and spreading its fragrance, was brought out to the family's cool green garden by Ms. Trang, making everyone excited.

For Pham Thi Ngoc Han, Trang’s daughter, this is a favorite dish because the water has a sweet and cool taste, the lotus seeds are soft and fatty, and there is a faint scent of lotus and pandan leaves. The lotus sweet soup also has longan, black jelly, tapioca pearls, shredded coconut… All of which blend together to create an attractive flavor.

Being quite a meticulous person, before cooking, Ms. Trang researched the uses of this dish.

In traditional medicine, all parts of the lotus plant are used as medicine. Lotus seeds in particular contain many nutrients such as starch, protein, lipids, etc. Lotus seeds have a sweet, astringent taste, are very cool and nutritious. “On a hot day, a bowl of lotus tea will be a great remedy for cooling and calming the nerves,” said Ms. Trang.

Easy to do

According to Ms. Trang, lotus seed sweet soup is delicious, nutritious and easy to make. To cook lotus seed sweet soup, the main ingredients are lotus seeds, then longan, coconut pulp, pandan leaves, rock sugar... In winter, Ms. Trang buys dried lotus seeds or frozen lotus seeds from Hue, Hanoi . This is the lotus season so she buys fresh lotus seeds from lotus ponds right in Chi Linh City. "The lotus seeds bought here are both fresh and delicious and have the typical flavor of my hometown", Ms. Trang said.

Every afternoon, Trang goes into the kitchen and cooks lotus seed sweet soup for the whole family to enjoy.

For children, after peeling the lotus seeds, the core can be removed because the lotus core has a bitter taste, but for adults, the lotus core can still be left intact because it is a sedative, good for people with insomnia.

After peeling and removing the core, Trang washed the lotus seeds and put them in a pot with 1.5 liters of water to boil. She skimmed off the foam and lowered the heat, adding a few pandan leaves. Trang revealed: “Removing the foam will make the tea clear and taste better. The pandan leaves will help add more aroma to the tea.” After that, the lotus seeds were simmered for about 20 minutes.

After the lotus seeds are soft, Trang scoops them out into a separate bowl. The lotus water is filtered to get the clear part, put back into the pot and then add rock sugar. According to Trang, using rock sugar will give a sweet, pleasant taste, aid digestion, reduce cough and cool the body. "There is another secret when cooking lotus seed sweet soup, which is to add a little salt to enhance the sweetness of the sweet soup," Trang said.

When the water boils again, the sugar dissolves, skim off the foam, add the lotus seeds and longan, bring to a boil again, and turn off the heat. The sweet soup is then poured out to cool, allowing the lotus seeds and longan to absorb the sweetness of the sugar.

Lotus seed sweet soup is often eaten with fragrant black jelly and white tapioca pearls to enhance the sweet and crunchy taste of the soup. Black jelly can be bought at the supermarket and cut into bite-sized pieces or you can buy grass jelly powder and cook it yourself in a certain ratio with water.

To make tapioca pearls, Trang uses young coconut meat cut into small cubes as the filling. Next, put 150g of tapioca starch in a bowl, add sugar, and a little lemon juice. Slowly add boiling water to the flour mixture and mix well until the dough is cooked. When the dough has cooled, knead the dough until it becomes a smooth, elastic mass that does not stick to your hands. Trang skillfully divides the dough into small pieces, adds the coconut filling, and rolls it into balls. According to Trang, the way to make tapioca pearls that can be kept soft and chewy for a long time is to boil water, put the tapioca pearls in and boil for 20 minutes, turn off the stove, cover and continue to incubate for 20 minutes. By doing so, the tapioca pearls are cooked, clear, chewy, and still soft and chewy. After that, the tapioca pearls are rinsed with cold water, and mixed with a little sugar to absorb the flavor.

Finally, put ice cubes in a pretty cup or bowl, scoop tapioca pearls, lotus seeds, add some black jelly, then pour lotus tea, sprinkle some shredded coconut on top to enjoy.

Lotus seed sweet soup is soft and mushy, clear water, sweet taste, crunchy shredded coconut, soft and chewy tapioca pearls, cool black jelly, a bit of lotus and pandan fragrance, very attractive.

Source: https://baohaiduong.vn/giai-nhiet-mua-he-bang-che-sen-tu-lam-415012.html