Black Sesame Soup

A hot sweet soup ground from toasted sesame and soaked rice, thickened by the rice alone and by nothing else.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 150 g black sesame seeds
• 60 g glutinous rice
• 1 litre water, plus 200 ml for soaking
• 100 g rock sugar, or to taste
• a pinch of salt

Method

1. THE RICE IS THE THICKENER AND THERE IS NO OTHER. No cornflour, no cream, nothing stirred in at the end: 60 g of glutinous rice soaked and ground with the sesame gives a soup that coats a spoon. A version thickened with starch instead tastes thin behind the sesame and sets to jelly as it cools.
2. THE SESAME IS TOASTED AND IT IS THE ONLY RISKY STEP. Black seeds give no colour warning as they darken -- they are already black -- so the signal is smell and sound, not sight. They go from fragrant to acrid in well under a minute, and burnt sesame cannot be rescued by sugar.
3. Rice rinsed and soaked in the 200 ml of water at least 4 hours, and the soaking water kept.
4. Sesame seeds rinsed in a fine sieve and drained -- they carry grit, and grit survives grinding.
5. Toasted in a dry pan over a LOW heat, stirred constantly, 5 to 6 minutes. Listen for them to start popping and stop the moment they smell strongly nutty. Tip them straight out of the pan; left in it they keep cooking.
6. Cooled completely. A warm seed grinds to a paste rather than a powder and the soup comes out greasy.
7. Sesame, the soaked rice and its water, and about 400 ml of the fresh water into a blender. Blended on high 3 to 4 minutes until completely smooth -- longer than feels necessary, because any grit left here is grit in the bowl.
8. Strained through a fine sieve into a pan, pressing the solids hard. What stays in the sieve is hull and is thrown away.
9. The rest of the water in with the rock sugar and the salt.
10. Brought to a simmer over a medium heat STIRRING THE WHOLE TIME with a flat-bottomed spoon. It thickens suddenly once it is near the boil and it catches on the base in seconds; a scorched patch flavours the entire pan.
11. Simmered 5 minutes once thickened, so the rice loses its raw edge.
12. Served hot in small bowls. It thickens further as it cools and loosens again with a splash of water when reheated.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under China · All recipes