Tropical Fruit Feast; Tong Sui, Sea Coconut, and Toddy Palm Fruit

As soon as I’m requested regarding the meals I miss most from dwelling, associates get incredulous after I level out Mom’s tong sui or “sugar water.”

“Sugar water? Nonetheless you’re not even all that eager on sweet points!” they’re saying.

Off-puttingly saccharine because it might sound, tong sui isn’t any syrup rest room nonetheless a calmly sweetened broth of nutritious goodness—an extension of the conventional Chinese language language remedy notion that all meals (even dessert) is medicinal and will assist ship your physique into greater stability and nicely being.

Sadly, tong sui are sometimes refined affairs involving quite a few parts and hours of double boiling and so, in my world, tong sui is produced by large moms and large dads, not lazy offspring.

There are fairly just a few recipes for tong sui with parts as various as papaya and rooster’s nest, nonetheless the one pictured above is a non-public favorite: aromatic, purple jujube dates, crisp, snow fungus, fragrant pandanus leaf, honeyed and dried longans and the star of the current, slippery sea coconuts—all gently simmered with a contact of rock sugar and served refreshingly chilled on a scorching summer season’s day.

It is the sea coconut, notably, that requires a mother’s prefer to make it to the desk. First, the up to date fruit have to be tracked down—few market stalls carry it as a result of the fruit sours shortly inside the tropical heat. Then, the fruit’s brown shell have to be painstakingly peeled off to reveal its glistening, milky white flesh.

The flesh is sliced into quarter-inch thick loops and separated into “company” and “tender” piles. Company-fleshed elements of the fruit needs to be simmered for an prolonged time to reach a desired softness (assume youthful, coconut flesh), whereas care have to be taken to not simmer the softer-fleshed elements into oblivion.

In distinction to the widespread coconut, which affords rich, creamy flesh and delicious nectar, the ocean coconut is all flesh and no nectar. In a shocking twist, you’ll uncover its flesh tastes like sweet, faintly tangy coconut nectar—a coconut nectar jelly, for those who’ll.

Apparently, the ocean coconut I’ve been talking about thus far—and what every Asian restaurant menu and canned fruit label claims is sea coconut—should not be true sea coconut (Lodoicea maldivica), nonetheless considerably the fruit of the toddy palm (Borassus flabellifer). Ask for the fruit of the toddy palm, though, and in addition you’ll be met with clear stares. The true sea coconut is a protected species, endemic to solely two of the 115 Seychelles Islands. Export is strictly managed, with each fruit bearing a government-issued serial tag. As quickly as believed to develop from a legendary tree on the underside of the ocean, sea coconut shells had been coveted and adorned with priceless gems by European nobles inside the sixteenth century.

I’ve not had true sea coconut, and doubt I ever will. Nonetheless I reckon the fruit of the toddy palm performs second fiddle to none. A helpful numerous to the up to date fruit are the cans of prepared “honey sea coconut” stocked in groceries. You may not get the medicinal properties derived from making tong sui from scratch, however when all you’re after is a tasty dessert, the canned mannequin higher than suffices. Merely chill sooner than serving with a twist of lime, or fancy it up by together with devices like lychees, longans and pineapple-stuffed rambutans. Yum!

Related

This marks the highest of the Tropical Fruit Feast assortment, folks. Wwe’ve eaten our strategy by jackfruit, rambutans and pulasans, starfruit, sapodillas, wampee fruit, longans, snakefruit, lychees, and red-fleshed dragonfruit. We have perhaps eaten our weight in fruit and are very glad the feasting was carried out close to the availability, away from scary prices. Be taught our Snapshots from Asia for additional consuming!