Peach Gum Gleditsia rice Sweet Soup 桃膠雪莲子糖水

In recent years, many are into peach gum 桃膠 as it is known for its benefit for women to enhance their complexion as well as to protect their joints.  

It also has a blood lipid-lowering effect, relieves stress, and is anti-wrinkle rejuvenation. 

Peach gum comes in dried form and needs to rehydrate for 8 – 12 hours.  I got mine from HK and I paid HK$60 (S$10.10) for 300g.  Come up to about S$3.40 for 100g.  As compared to the one I saw in a medical hall in Singapore, the one I have is pretty big so instead of by the number of pieces I prefer to weigh them out for this recipe. 

The last check with a local medical hall, it is retailing between S$7.50-S$12.00 for 250g.  Comes up to about S$4.80/100g.

雪莲子 aka 皂角米also known as Gleditsia rice or honey locust and came from the Yunan area.  This pod from the Gleditsia tree is good for the liver, eyesight, spleen, and kidney.

This also comes in dried form and needs to rehydrate for 8 – 12 hours.   The price for this is HK$231.50 (S$38.90) for 500g.  Comes up to about S$7.80/100g.  Rather expensive but a rare find.

The last check at retail was S$22.00 for 150g. Comes up to about S$14.70/100g.

Anyway, both seem to have fake products in the market so you need to get them from reputable sources.  For peach gum, after rehydrating it, you should find dirt particles from the tree barks.  As for the Gleditsia rice, this has an irregular shape and is not clean-cut.  As it is a pod, so you will find it has two sides to it.

Both is basically tasteless, so you need to add in dried logan, red dates, and goji to sweeten it.

Now let us enjoy this bowl of Peach Gum Gleditsia rice Sweet Soup 桃膠雪莲子糖水.

Findings: I started off with 1 litre of water but I top up the water every half-hour interval.  The Gleditsia rice also dissolved and got slightly stuck to the bottom of the pot too.

In the next round, I will do it in the double boiler.  Save me the hassle of checking on the water level and getting worried about burning the sweet soup.

After 2 hours of simmering, the Gleditsia rice totally dissolved into the sweet soup, leaving a slightly thickened texture.  The aroma of the red dates and logan is really nice.

It is like eating hashima that my mom used to cook for us but in plant form.  Interesting.

What you need:

Serve 4

20g peach gum

10g Gleditsia rice

10 Dried Logan, soak to soften

6 Red Dates, pits removed

Rock sugar (to taste)

  

Method:

The night before, soak peach gum and Gleditsia rice separately.

Remove all impurities from peach gum.  

Bring to boil a pot of water, add in peach gum, Gleditsia rice, red dates, and dried logan.   Lower heat and simmer for 2 hours.

If it is not sweet enough, you can add in rock sugar.

 Enjoy!