Chinese Green Bean Soup Dessert/绿豆汤 [Lǜdòu tāng]

Ingredients:

1. 1/2 cup (100 g) dried mung beans
2. 2 cups (5000 ml) water for cooking the beans

Sweet milk:
3. 1 cup (250 ml) fresh low fat 0.1% milk
4. 3 dried dates pitted

Directions:

1. Rinse the mung beans and add 2 cups of water into a pot.
2. Bring to boil, lower hear and simmer under low heat (no. 2.5 on my stove) for 45 minutes.
3. Let cool.

4. Blend 1 cup milk with the dried dates for 30 seconds to a minute to make a sweet milk.
5. Ladle separately into 4 bowls and add sweet milk and serve :-)

Additional Information:

I love this dessert. Growing up in Singapore, my mum would make this dessert for us. Translated from Chinese 绿豆汤 [Lǜdòu tāng], it actually means "mung bean soup." My mum would add a bit of sago i.e. small tapioca pearls (which our son likes today). And during the durian season, she would add durian slices into it too - absolutely heavenly. My mum would cook it and add sugar during the cooking and we usually eat with a drizzle of condensed milk. But condensed milk isn't healthy. Thus, I don't wish to pass this down this habit to our kids. I made a sweet milk mixture using fresh milk and dates instead as a healthier option for the condensed milk.

I served this yesterday after Baby FECS got back from the kindergarten and Little FECS too. They loved it. So I am very happy :-) Baby FECS is currently tired of the breakfast I give her (usually oatmeal or smoothie), thus this morning, I served this for her as breakfast. She liked it very much.

I tried to sweeten the mung beans during cooking with dates, but our Little FECS feel that it wasn't as nice as the one I made yesterday - which was simply just cooking the mung bean with water. Thus, I will stop doing that. They love the sweet milk.

This morning, I had a little bit of homemade strawberry milk left. Baby FECS asked for more sweet milk for her mung bean dessert. I poured some strawberry milk in it instead, and she liked it too :-)

Our Little FECS likes the mung beans cooked unsweetened. If you prefer it to be sweeter, you can add coconut sugar or just sugar while cooking the mung beans (but don't add the sugar at the beginning of the cooking before the beans are softened).

References:

https://www.chinasichuanfood.com/mung-bean-soup/