The answer is - we both have a sweet tooth but called it differently. We called it cheng tng and they called it tong sui. Tong Sui, the Cantonese variety of sweet dessert hails from the cities of Hong Kong, Macau and Guangzhou in southern China. Literally translated, it means sugar water. The local populace simply love them just as Singaporeans love their cheng tng desserts. There are often shops or stalls which devote themselves just to selling different types of Tong sui desserts, may remind some of the cheng tng stalls found in nearly every food court in Singapore. Like our cheng tng stalls which offer a great variety of hot or cold sweet soup such as red bean, tau suan, sweet potatoes and the traditional gown bee tng or five flavours, soup made with dried longans, barley, ginkgo nuts, lotus seeds. Tong sui is a collective term for any sweet, warm soup or custard served as a dessert such as sesame soup, peanut, walnut with rice dumplings and my favourite dan tan ( double boiled egg custard).
Double-Boiled Egg Custard Recipe
Ingredients:
1 cup hot water
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1/2 cup sugar
6 eggs
Method:
Empty the sugar into a bowl and dissolve sugar with hot water to make a syrup. Set aside to cool.
Break eggs in a mixing bowl and beat eggs lightly. Whisk in the cool syrup and evaporated milk. Strain the egg mixture through a fine sieve into rice bowl or cups. Bring mixture to steam for 15 – 20 minutes.
Serve warm with sweet red beans.
