Peach Gum Dates Dessert Soup (3 Ingredients)- For Beautiful Skin

My sister is getting married soon and she's been eating healthy and other beauty food to prepare for her big day. Since we were little, our mother make for us Chinese beauty food supposedly makes us beautiful. A few of them are bird nest soup, hasma soup, Eight Treasure Tonic, Red Dates Tonic, and other herbal soups.

This time, when my sister requested for a collagen-rich dessert, she made a simple but delicious dessert with peach gum or known as 'tou gau/桃胶' in Cantonese. I like that this is not overly sweet.

BENEFITS OF PEACH GUM

For someone who like chewy jelly-like texture like konnyaku jelly, I love eating peach gum which is believed to be a source of collagen. I have yet to do a detail research on the gum, but a quick google search shows that:

Peach gum is the resin from peach and Chinese wild peach trees, already solidified when it is found. As detailed in classical Chinese medical literature, its curative qualities include solving urinal infections, thirst-quenching and relieving stress.

Not only used frequently by doctors of Traditional Chinese Medicine, peach gum is also a natural and healthy food rich in amino acid, which allows collagen to be quickly absorbed into the human body. (Source: Michelin Guide)

Peach gum is believe to have beauty benefits like bird nest...but much more affordable. While I don't know how much of this truly helps (as in I can't find scientific explanations yet), I know from experience that a lot of my Mom's wisdom passed on from our ancestors did help me.

Besides what can I lose from eating something natural and plant-base (not bird's saliva) like peach gum? So yes, I am going to continue enjoying this dessert and hopefully reap its purported beauty benefits.

3 MAIN INGREDIENTS

While I do like to cook, sometimes difficult recipes with a long list of ingredients overwhelms even a cooking instructor/food consultant like me. So I came up with a list of recipes using 5 ingredients and less. This is one of them.

You will only need three ingredients:

• Peach Gum
• Honey Dates
• Red Dates

TOOLS

• Pot/ slow-cooker
• Mixing bowl (to soak the peach resin)

RECIPE CARD

Peach Gum & Dates Soup Dessert (3 Ingredients)

6th November 2019

Servings: 6

Prep: 10 min

Cook: 8 hr

Difficulty: Easy

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By: Sara Khong

Ingredients

• Peach Resin - 50 g (about 1/2 cup)
• Red dates - 60 g (about 20 medium-sized pieces)
• Honey dates - 120 g (about 6 pieces)
• Water - 1.5 L

Directions

• Step 1 Soak peach gum in water overnight or until they expand and soften
• Step 2 Remove the hard black bits from the peach resin (those are barks)
• Step 3 Put honey dates, red dates, and water in a slow cooker. Boil on LOW for 8 hours, or HIGH for 4 hours.
• Step 4 Remove dates from the cooker
• Step 5 Then add in peach resin. Let it cook for another 25 minutes.

SHORT RECIPE

STEP-BY-STEP

2. Remove the hard black bits from the peach resin (those are barks)

COOKING NOTES

1. Cook in a slow-cooker overnightI  like making this in the slow-cooker right before going to bed. So by morning, the dates would have been slow-boiled for 8 hours.
2. Use a steam oven If you have a steam oven (I have a Panasonic one),  you can also steam it for 3 hours. Head over to this video to see how I did it
3. If cooking in a pot, bring 2 litres of water and dates to boil then simmer for 1 hour with lid closed (or longer depending on how concentrated you want it to be)
4. Add more red dates and honey dates to make it sweeter My family doesn't like food to be too sweet. If it's not sweet enough for you, you can add more red dates, honey dates, or even rock sugar.
5. Buy peach gum at Chinese medicinal shop. I found it online too at Lazada/ Shopee by the name of  Tao Jiao, Peach Resin, and Peach Gum. 

This is one of the easiest and most delicious beauty food that I enjoy drinking. Try it!