Everyday Dessert

Ever since I learned how to cook this simple Chinese dessert...known as Tau Suan, I will make sure my better half gets to eat his favourite dessert whenever he is back home.

If you are living on the other side of the earth from this little red dot, Tau Suan is a warm, sweet dessert made with split, skinned mung beans. The mung beans is usually steamed still it is cooked before it is boiled in a pot of water. Not just plain water, but water that has been simmering away with a few bundles of pandan leaves or screw pine leaves. The soup is then sweetened with sugar and thickened with starch such as sweet potato flour or water chestnut flour. This dessert is always served with fried you tiao or fried dough fritters, a bowl of tau suan will never taste the same if there is no you tiao to go with it.

This cheap and simple dessert is easily available at most dessert stalls here...and if I am not wrong, there is at least one dessert stall in every single food centre or what we known as hawker centres. However, nowadays, it is not easy to find good tau suan. I either get a bowl of watery mung beans with a lot more water than mung beans, or the consistency of the dessert is so thick that it was no different from swallowing a bowl of gummy glue.

Although it is a simple dessert to prepare, it never occurred to me that I could actually make it at home...not until I first saw it at Esther's blog, Bits and Pieces of Life. She has followed the recipe from Makansutra, and thanks to Seetoh's video, I've since learned how to cook tua suan! I noted his unique way of stir frying the mung beans till it caramelised. This is definitely something different from the usual method of steaming the mung beans. By stir frying them, not only it shortens the preparation time; ensures the beans remain 'whole'; it also gives the dessert a nice golden hue. I have later tried another recipe using the steam method (just to compare), but the colour of the tau suan looks so pale and unappetising despite replacing white sugar with brown ones.

The other thing to note is the right type of starch to use as thickening agent. Water chestnut flour will give the best moulthfeel, without being too sticky, followed by sweet potato flour. Hope over to this interesting article to learn about the 'power' of the various thickening agents. For his recipe, Seetoh uses a combination of water chestnut and sweet potato flour. However, I used only sweet potato flour, yet I don't find the consistency or taste of the tau suan being compromised. My homemade tau suan tastes better than what I could get from most dessert stalls. Someday, when I find suitable recipes to use up water chestnut flour, I will certainly use it to thicken the dessert.

With the right knowledge of the ingredients, and following the recipe closely, anyone can make a nice bowl of tau suan. Do give this simple dessert a try, I am sure you won't regret it :)



Tau Suan with You Tiao

Ingredients:
(serves 4)

1.5 ltr water
2 ~ 3 bundles of pandan leaves
250g split mung beans
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
50g sweet potato flour (original recipe calls for 30g water chestnut flour and 20g sweet potato flour)
50ml water
2 ~ 3 tablespoons granulated sugar (adjust according to taste)
1 stick of you tiao

Method:

• Soak mung beans for about 5mins. Drain and set aside. 
• Wash pandan leaves and tie into bundles.
• Place water and pandan leaves in a pot. Leave to simmer for about 10mins.
• In the mean time, place mung beans in a frying pan. Add 3 tablespoons of sugar and stir fry continuously over low heat till the mung beans caramelised (about 8~10 mins).
• Discard the pandan leaves from the pot of water.
• Transfer mung beans into the pot of water. Bring it back to boil. Leave to boil for another 5~10 mins. Taste the beans for the prefered texture. Cook a couple of mins longer if prefer softer texture. Add in 2 ~ 3 tablespoons of sugar. Stir to dissolve the sugar.
• Dissolve sweet potato flour with 50ml of water. Stir in gradually. Turn off the heat once it comes to a boil. 
• Serve with you tiao or dough fritters

(note: in order to get a nice consistency, do follow the ingredient amount closely, especially amount of water, amount of water chestnut/sweet potato flour.)

Recipe source: adapted from Makansutra Cooking