Mini-Project 2

Today, I cooked some red bean soup. It is a type of Chinese dessert. It is characterized as a tang sui (literal meaning: sugar water) or sweet soup. It is served cold in the summer and hot in the winter. The two types of sugar used interchangeably are rock sugar and sliced sugar.

Here are the ingredients:

-about 1 lb of red beans

-about 1/4 lb of lotus seeds

-rock sugar or sliced sugar (It depends how sweet you want the soup to be)

-enough water to cover the red beans and lotus seeds

Here are the steps to make the red bean soup:

1. Wash the red beans.

2. Put the red beans and the lotus seeds in a medium sized pot.

3. Fill the water over the the amount of dry ingredients.

4. Boil this for about an hour on low heat.

5. Turn off the fire and let it sit for about 45 minutes.

6. Add in the desired amount of sugar (you can add some more water if the soup is too thick) and boil the mixture for another 30 minutes.

The red bean soup should be a little thick. The beans and seeds should not be too hard. If it is, boil the soup a little longer. Enjoy.

If you want to eat this cold, you can put some ice, red bean soup, and ice cream inside a blender and blend them together to make a cold smoothie.

Science: In the beginning, the red beans and the lotus seeds are hard and dry. Then, when you boil the beans and seeds, they expand and become pasty and thick. Molecules are denatured. According to Chinese herbs, lotus seeds are good for the liver. Red beans increase the amount of blood in your blood.

photocredit to Kenneth Ng and Yvonne Ng