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| Cao quy linh, a jelly-shaped Chinese dessert can help cool down our body - Photo: Kieu Giang |
After being overloaded by the numerous Tet parties with beer, wine and hot food, people should find something cool and healthy that brings the balance back to our bodies. And cao quy linh is an ideal food for that purpose.
This is a popular Chinese dessert made from tortoise shells’ powder, dandelion and honeysuckle and other Chinese herbs. It looks like Vietnamese dessert suong sao (black sweet jelly) but is more chewy and bitter due to the combination of dandelion and honeysuckle.
According to Oriental medicine, cao quy linh helps the body cool, and has an antidotal, complexion enrichment and laxative effect and it’s good for people of all ages except pregnant women and those who are in bad physical situation. It also helps prevent acne. It is a perfect dessert when kept in the fridge and served with honey. People can buy tortoise shells’ powder packed in boxes from Chinese medicine stores and honey and duong phen (sugar candy) to make this dessert at home.
To prepare you put four powder packs into a big bowl with four big spoons of water to have a slightly thick combination. Then pour four bowls of water together with sugar into a saucepan and wait for the sugar to melt. After that put the thick combination into the pan and stir it for two minutes. The final step is ladling out the combination into some small bowls to make it cold inside a fridge.
Then all you have to do is take the bowl out and pour honey sauce into it and enjoy a cool and healthy dessert.
