Tremella Dessert

I love tremella for its crunchiness, chewiness and versatility. I can boil soup with it, cook it with the dishes or make a dessert out of it. Tremella is also known as snow fungus, in chinese as 银耳 or 白木耳. It is said to nourish both the lungs and skin.  

I usually cut tremella into smaller pieces after soaking it. I thought of chopping it up into really small pieces so that it easier to have it as a soup-in-a-cup instead of using a bowl. And it turned out quite nicely! Since I have not exactly share a food post before, I thought I would share the recipe here.

Very simple to make, preparation time is less than 20 minutes if you have all the ingredients and boiling time is about 10 minutes if you use a thermal pot.

Ingredients:

• 10 gram of tremella.  
• 30 gram of honey rock sugar or known as 石峰糖 in Chinese.
• 30 gram of dried longan.
• Few pieces of Lilium or known as 百合 in chinese
• Few pieces of wolfberries
• 1, 2 pieces of figs 
• 1.2 litre of water

You should be able to get the ingredients from a chinese herbal shop quite easily. Wash all ingredients except for the tremella and honey rock sugar. Bring the water to boil in a pot while you process the ingredients. 

Method: 

Process the tremella with a food processor until fine pieces. I prefer not to wash it until it is processed. Once wash or soak, tremella would absorb the water and expand. I like to handle it dry and to wash it once I am ready to boil it together with the rest of the ingredients. 

Place the processed tremella into a big sieve and rinse it under running water for a few times until the tremella expands and feels spongy. 

Turn down the fire to the smallest mode available. Add in the honey rock sugar, figs and longan into the boiling water. Stir occasionally until the honey rock sugar dissolves. The water should look slightly golden by now. This should take only a few minutes. Add in the washed tremella, leaving wolfberries to the last.

Turn up to medium fire to boil the mixture for about 5 minutes before placing it into the thermal pot. Leave it in the thermal pot for about 20 to 30 minutes and it is ready!

I like to have it hot and hubby likes it cold. If you are going to have it cold, it might be better to wait for it to cool down before adding ice. If your tremella is processed to really fine bits, you can even have it with a straw!

You can vary the taste by adding in more longan for extra fragrance, more fig for sweetness, more tremella for a thicker texture. Enjoy!