Sweet Water Chestnut Barley Soup 薏仁马蹄西米露

A lightly sweetened dessert with grated water chestnut, barley and mini sago pearl. The soup is usually thickened by adding water chestnut powder and beaten egg.  However, it's not easy to get hold of water chestnut powder and I don't really need it in my usual cooking, so I substituted it by barley and mini sago pearls. To me, adding egg will make the dessert heavy, so I omitted it.

This refreshing dessert can be serve warm or cold according to your preference :)

Yield: 4 dessert servings

Ingredients

500g water 水

1 pandan leaf 香兰叶

5 water chestnuts 马蹄

1/2 tsp barley 薏仁

1 1/2 tbsp sago pearl 西谷米

50g rock sugar 冰糖

Direction

1. Heat up water and pandan leaf in a pot.

2. Soak barley and sago pearls.

Wash the sago pearls a few rounds until the water becomes clear.

3. Peel and grate water chestnuts. Set aside.

Don't discard the peel, use it to boil water chestnut drink with pandan leaf.

4. When the water starts to bubble at the bottom, pour in barley and bring to a light boil.

5. When the water boils, pour in the grated water chestnut and sago pearls. 

Stir regularly to prevent the starchy sago pearls from sticking to the base.

6. When the mixture boils and thickens, add in the rock sugar.

7. The dessert is ready when the rock sugar melted.

8. Serve hot or cold to your preference :)