It's not easy to get over one’s instinctive and pure childhood love for exciting and fun food items like candy floss, jellies and jams, no matter how impractical it seems today. Moving on to jellies and jams, you can still relive and revive those fun food moments with China Grass Pudding, which looks glossy and beautiful rose-coloured, but also feels like sweet jelly but with a superior milky taste. The soft gelatinous texture in this sweet comes from the addition of dissolved agar or China grass, which acts as an instant thickening agent with milk in addition to cornflour slurry. Preparing this is even more delightful when you see the China grass melting in warm water and the tightening of the pudding once it's left to set even at room temperature.
What is Agar Agar Or China Grass?
These curious-looking white-coloured fibrous grasses are also called Ramie fibre or China grass. But even more interesting is the fact that it is obtained from the cell walls of Gigartina species of marine red algae. The name agar has also been given after Gigartina from which it is obtained. These are believed to be discovered in Japan in 1658 in the discarded surplus seaweed soup, which was found to have gelled after freezing on a wintry night.
Following the discovery, Agar started being used as a gelling agent in several Southeast Asian cuisine and desserts. Besides being used as a laxative, thickener, and clarifying agent in brewing agar is also used as a substrate to contain culture media for microbiological work and for sizing paper and fabrics. The reason for its popularity and diverse usage is its ability to dissolve completely in boiling water or milk besides being a healthy and natural alternative for synthetic gelatin.
Ingredients:
• 8 gm China grass
• ¼ cup warm water
• 750 ml full-fat milk
• 1 tbsp cornflour
• 4 tbsp sugar
• 6 tbsp rose syrup
Method:
• Soak agar in warm water for 15 minutes.
• Transfer the contents to a vessel and put it on flame and keep stirring it on low to medium heat, until China grass starts melting. Turn off the flame when China grass is melted.
• Transfer the milk to melted China grass and cook on high flame until the milk heats and then turn the flame low.
• Meanwhile, make a slurry of cornflour with 2 tbsp milk, then add this slurry to the China Grass and milk cooking in the pan.
• Stir the milk with the slurry continuously for 5 minutes on low heat. Then turn off the heat and let it cool for a while.
• Then add rose syrup to the milk, followed by sugar and mix well to dissolve the sugar.
• Then transfer the milk pudding to a baking tray.
• Leave it to cool and set at room temperature and then refrigerate in the fridge for an hour.
• Then de-mould the China Grass Pudding from the baking tray and cut it into equal-sized cubes.
• Serve to eat.
Check the sweetness of the milk pudding after pouring rose syrup and then add sugar accordingly. These sweetmeats are super delicious and full of delightsome rose aroma, thanks to rose syrup and made with minimal ingredients. These jelly-like sweets made with so much ease are worth trying every bit.
