The best pumpkin soup around

Southern China is home to a host of sweet soups that are meant to be enjoyed all through the day. One of my favorites is this one: It features pumpkin in all its glory. The only seasonings are some coconut milk, sugar, and a touch of salt, so you really get to taste the pumpkin. This is a breeze to make, and is especially wonderful during autumn, when hard squashes are at their best.

Pumpkins and squash are from the New World, but they have been adopted throughout southern China with delight. Sichuan, for example, has a whole range of dishes that simply are better with pumpkin, like underneath rice crumb pork and in pastry dough. In Cantonese cooking, hard squashes usually show up in sweets like this.

You really can use whatever kind of pumpkin or orange squash you like here. Kabocha squash (which is what is pictured to the right) has a dry, starchy edge to it that is delicious. Pie pumpkins are juicier and have a much sweeter taste. Butternut squash is equally good. So, use whatever you like and looks best.

Kabocha squash

This makes a lot, but it will disappear fast. I refrigerate it in smallish plastic containers that I can microwave for fast breakfasts or late night snacks. You can also use condensed milk instead of the coconut milk and sugar for a more traditional Cantonese taste.

Sweet pumpkin coconut soup with tapioca

Nánguā yèzhī xīmǐlù 南瓜椰汁西米露

Southern China

Serves 6 to 8

1 (3 to 4 pound) pumpkin

Water, as needed

3/4 cup tiny pearl tapioca (not Western-style tapioca)

1 (13.5 ounce) can coconut milk

Sprinkle of sea salt

Sugar or agave syrup to taste

Seed the wedges

1. Use a cleaver or heavy knife to cut the pumpkin into easy-to-handle wedges. Remove the stem end and all the seeds. Use a potato peeler to remove the skin. Chop the flesh into 1-inch (or so) cubes. Place the pumpkin in a large pot and barely cover it with water. Bring the water to a boil over high heat and then lower it to a simmer.Cook the pumpkin until it is cooked through, but not mushy.

2. Reduce the heat to its lowest setting. Sprinkle the tapioca over the pumpkin and gently shake the pan so that all of the tapioca becomes submerged, but do not stir it in. This will help prevent the tapioca from lumping up on the bottom and burning. After 10 minutes, remove the pan from the stove and shake it again gently to mix in the tapioca. 

Then remove the skin

3. After another 20 minutes, add the coconut milk, salt, and sugar, and then gently stir the soup, adding more boiling water as needed to thin it out. Serve this hot or warm. To reheat, use a microwave to avoid burning the tapioca and breaking down the pumpkin too much.

Tip

− The tapioca will plump up quite a bit if you refrigerate the soup, so add a bit more water to the container if the soup is on the dry side.

Hainan's sweet coconut tapioca soup

Hainan gets short shrift as a cuisine, even in China. And I agree, this is not as an extensive a cuisine as that of its big brother to the west, Guangdong. 

However, this tropical island perched off of the southernmost coast of China near Viet Nam is home to some delicious dishes that - like the foods of Guangxi and Guizhou on China's southern border - blur the lines between Chinese and Southeast Asian cuisine. Called Qiong cai, the signature of this cuisine that just about everyone has heard of, if not tasted, is Hainan Chicken, which is so popular in Singapore that it is pretty close to the national dish.

The fishing grounds around Hainan have traditionally been the source of much of this island's cuisine, and it has become especially famous among local cognoscenti for its crustacean dishes. Salt and Pepper Shrimp, Shrimp Steamed with Garlic, Hainan Shrimp Balls, and Steamed Lobster all are perfectly delicious and have that tropical character characteristic of this relatively unknown province.

All of the ingredients

The titles of some of its dishes can harbor something even more delectable than the first image that pops into your mind. Take, for example, Four Treasure Hainan Bean Curd. There's actually no bean curd in there, as it is a delicate custard created out of egg whites, coconut milk, and stock. The smooth texture of this delicate creation is studded with tiny fresh shrimp, crab roe, and bits of fresh calamari for the most comforting approach possible to seafood.

But it's that coconut milk that characterizes Hainan the most, as far as I'm concerned. And nothing else - other than the lovely pandan leaves that scent many of its sweets - provides such a sensual link between the tastes of China and Viet Nam.

Coconut milk is a big deal here because this is China's very own Hawai'i. Coconut palms cover the island and are used in a plethora of savory and sweet dishes. My own favorite for countless years has been Sweet Coconut Tapioca Soup. If you are not a fan of tapioca, I completely understand. In my book, tapioca puddings were things to be dreaded as a child, sickly sweet and of questionable solidity, almost as bad as instant pudding but somehow even scarier.

Chinese tapioca is different. Often labeled as "sago" since the main ingredient in tapioca comes from the sago palm, Chinese and Southeast Asian tapiocas are perfectly round pearls that keep their lovely shape as they swell, and they therefore retain their chewy texture rather than leaking it out into their surroundings. (And a quick note here for all the Chinese-language students out there: the Chinese name for tapioca - ximi - actually is short for Xigong mi, or Saigon rice, showing that this did indeed make its way into China via Viet Nam.)

One of the most refreshing tapioca recipes has to be this one. It is just perfect for this time of year when the weather is hot and the melons are truly ripe and fragrant. You can use any type of melon you like, or you could even use a mixture of them (green honeydew, orange cantaloupe, red and yellow watermelon, for example) to make this a riot of color.

My own twist on this is that in addition to the coconut milk: I add a dash of coconut rum to really give the flavor an extra jolt. Since there is only ¼ cup of rum to 10 cups of soup, that works out to, um, let me calculate that... just a little bit per bowl. However, if you want, you can omit the rum and serve it the traditional way.

Chill the soup for a couple of hours before serving, and thin it out with some ice water if it seems too thick. There's plenty here for seconds and leftovers, which is the way I like it!

Sweet coconut tapioca soup 
Yezhi ximi lu  椰汁西米露
Hainan

Translucent pearls

Makes about 10 cups soup

3 cups filtered water, divided
1 cup Chinese tiny tapioca pearls (ximi, or sago)
½ cup sugar (rock, white, sugar substitute, or agave nectar to taste)
1 cup iced filtered water
1 (19 ounce) can good quality coconut milk
3 cups melon cut into matchsticks (see note below), or a 2½ pound slice of melon
¼ cup coconut rum, optional
More ice water, as needed
Ice cubes and mint sprigs, optional

1. Bring 2 cups filtered water to a boil in a 3-quart saucepan. Stir in the tapioca pearls, and keep on stirring until the water comes to a boil again. Lower the heat to medium-low and simmer the tapioca, stirring occasionally, until the tapioca has swelled and the mixture is very thick. Add the remaining 1 cup water to the tapioca, which will "shock" the pearls and turn them translucent with little white centers. Bring the pot to a boil again then remove from the heat.

Slices into matchsticks

2. Stir the sugar into the tapioca until the sugar has melted. Add the cup of iced water to further shock the tapioca and loosen up the pearls, and then stir in the coconut milk, melon matchsticks, and rum, if desired. 

3. Pour the soup into a covered container and chill for a few hours before serving. If the soup is too thick, thin it by stirring in some iced water until the desired consistency is achieved. On really hot days, float an ice cube or two in the soup, garnish with some mint, and get ready to feel refreshed.

Note: To slice the melon into matchsticks, cut the melon into wedges about an inch wide on the outer (rind) edge. Trim off the rind and then slice the melon wedge into long sheets about an eighth of an inch thick. Finally, cut widthwise across the the sheets to form matchsticks that are more or less an inch long and an eighth of an inch on the other two sides.

Sweet soup for uncertain days

The weather has been sort of schizo lately - one day hot, the next day cold. It seem like we will never settle down into any particular season's weather at this point and are to remain in seasonal limbo until the dog days of summer finally arrive.

Which brings me to the subject of sweet bean soup. In the West, bean soup equals savory soup, a toe-warming and usually meat-based bowl of winter pleasure. But in China, bean soups more often than not are sweet. 

Although this may seem odd if you have never tried it, sweet bean soups are delicious, offer infinite variety, and can be served hot in cold weather and cold in hot weather. Two kinds of beans are generally used here: red (adzuki) beans and green (mung) beans.

Peeled & unpeeled green beans

The weather generally determines what kind of bean is used. Red beans (hongdou) are considered warming, and so they are most often used in hot soups, although they do make guest appearances in such summer treats as red beans over shaved ice, red bean ice cream, and so forth, because they have a distinctive taste and unique texture; their skins are tender, so the only way you'll find red beans is au naturel in their little red birthday suits. 

Green beans, as you may have surmised by now, are cooling, and so summer soups will feature them since they not only taste great but help to dispel the heat. 

Green beans (lüdou) come in two forms: peeled and unpeeled. Unpeeled green beans are what you usually find in natural food stores; the skins of the beans are intact, and it's easy to see how these beans got their name. Less common, but perhaps even more intriguing, are the skinned green beans, which are yellow. Green beans in their natural state have rather tough skins, and this is fine if you are serving rustic soups, but if you want to have a smoother texture, the peeled ones fit the bill to a T. In fact, once the peeled beans have cooked and softened, they turn into a smooth mass that mingles easily with any other ingredients that happen to find their way into the pot.

Tiny tapioca pearls

Another good reason t0 use peeled green beans is that they do not require soaking; just an hour or so of gentle cooking will result in a perfect bowl of smooth soup.

One of our favorite versions is peeled green beans cooked until they are soft, and then small tapioca is stirred in to lighten up the soup. Finally, condensed milk is added to bring sweetness and a touch of richness to the soup. It is very good hot, but when chilled, this soup takes on a genuinely decadent texture.

Tapioca probably came to China via  Southeast Asia, which is why the Chinese name for tapioca is Xigong mi (Saigon rice), or Xi mi for short. Sweet soups with tapioca and coconut milk are very popular throughout southern China, but the unpeeled beans make appearances throughout much of the northern and eastern areas; this, then, is one of those types of foods that has fans all over.

The heartier second soup also can be served hot or cold or whatever suits you. They both are classics that can be gussied up or dressed down depending upon your whims and what is hanging around in your pantry. Feel free to use the condensed milk with the unpeeled beans and coconut milk plus sugar for the peeled ones. Or, you can omit both milks and just serve the soup slightly sweetened. Hot, cold, room temperature... these two soups are completely versatile and accommodating.

Tapioca adds a gentle texture

Chilled green bean soup  
Bing lüdouren tang  冰綠豆仁湯 
All over China, but probably from Guangdong

Serves 4


1 cup peeled dried green (mung) beans
7 cups filtered water, divided
4 tablespoons small tapioca pearls
Dash of sea salt
Condensed milk to taste (half to whole can), optional

1. There is no need to soak the peeled beans, so just pick them over and toss out any debris or stones, rinse them off in a sieve, cover them with about 4 cups of the water, bring the water to a boil, and then lower the heat to a simmer.  Cook the beans until they begin to fall apart. 

2. Boil the remaining 3 cups of water and add to the pot before stirring in the tapioca pearls and salt. Bring the pot to a boil and then lower the heat to medium-low so that the beans barely simmer; cook until the tapioca is transparent (although a little bit of white in the center is all right). 

3. Remove the pot from the heat and stir in condensed milk to taste. If you plan to eat this soup hot, half to three-quarters of a can will probably provide enough sweetness, but add more if you are going to serve this chilled, since the sweetness will be less noticeable if the soup is cold. Add more water if you want the soup thinner. Store covered in the refrigerator for up to three days.

Hot green bean soup

Hot green bean soup 
Lüdou tang  綠豆湯  
All over China, but probably from Hainan or Guangdong
Serves 4


1 cup unpeeled dried green (mung) beans
14 cups filtered water, plus more as needed
4 tablespoons small tapioca pearls, optional
1 can good quality coconut milk (not coconut cream), optional
Dash of sea salt
Rock sugar or sweetener to taste

1. Start this recipe at least the day before you want to serve it. Pick over the beans carefully and remove any stones or foreign matter. Place the beans in a medium work bowl and cover the beans with tap water. Soak the beans at least 8 hours or overnight.

Pour in some coconut milk for a tropical flavor

2. Drain the beans, rinse them well, and cover them with half of the filtered water. Bring the water to a boil, boil the beans for 10 minutes, and then dump out the water and rinse the beans well; this will reduce some of the unpleasant aftereffects that beans tend to offer. 

3. Cover the beans with the rest of the water, bring the pot to a boil, and then simmer the beans over medium heat until they start to fall apart. Add the tapioca, if you are using it, and simmer the beans until the tapioca is almost translucent. Pour in the coconut milk, if using, as well as the salt and sugar to taste. Simmer until the sugar is dissolved. Serve hot, at room temperature, or cold.

4. As with all bean soups, these are high in protein, and so they spoil easily. For that reason, try to eat them up in a few days and always keep them refrigerated.