Recipe: Shunde Sweetened Fresh Milk Pudding (Chinese Dessert)

Last weekend, we finally took down the Christmas decorations in our house but soon it will be time to put up the Chinese New Year (CNY) ones. With CNY fast approaching, I'd like to share a few Chinese recipes with you all. 

I first read about Shunde cuisine from Flavours magazine. From the magazine, I learnt that Shunde province located at the mouth of the Pearl River in Guangdong, Southern China, is famous for simple, homestyle dishes that represent the best of Cantonese cooking. The region is also famous for its dairy-based dishes such as sauteed fresh milk and sweetened milk pudding. The latter is a creamy and wobbly dessert that uses ginger juice to coagulate the fresh milk.

Shunde sweetened fresh milk pudding

This was relatively simple to make. The most time consuming part was to grate the ginger and strain the juice. The original recipe recommends the use of Bentong ginger which is said to be much more fragrant.This has quite a strong gingery taste, which suits our tastebuds since we love ginger. The original recipe calls for 45g sugar (for 4 servings), the second time I made it with only 25g sugar and it was sweet enough. I like the texture of it, which resembles tau fu fah (beancurd dessert). It is simply amazing to see the milk coagulating into a smooth curd in a matter of minutes when mixed with the ginger juice.

Smooth, wobbly texture

Shunde Sweetened Fresh Milk Pudding (Dessert)
Recipe adapted from Flavours Magazine
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 10-15 minutes
Serves 4

Ingredients
750ml fresh milk
80g full-cream milk powder
45g caster sugar (or you can reduce it to 25g)
80g fresh ginger juice, strained

1. Firstly, finely grate the ginger (about 4 inches - I used old ginger). Then squeeze the juice out into a small bowl, then strain, ready for use. Divide the ginger juice equally into each dessert bowl/ramekin (20g each).

2. In a medium saucepan, place the fresh milk, milk powder and sugar. Stir to mix and cook over low heat until the mixture reaches a temperature of 80C. Give the mixture a stir every 1-2 minute.

3. Divide the hot milk among the bowls (about 180ml each).

4. Set aside without stirring for 5-10 minutes to allow it to set into a smooth curd.