How to Make Green Grass Jelly

· Black Grass Jelly's Cousin ·

February 2, 2020 0 Comments

In the past we’ve written a piece on how to make black grass jelly (aka cincau, suong sao, xian cao, leung fan) at home. That’s what’s more typically available in Asian dessert and bubble tea shops if at all. But there’s a cousin of the black grass jelly, too? That’s right, we’re talking about the green grass jelly.

Green grass jelly, whose scientific name is tiliacora triandra, is native to Southeast Asia. A vine-y plant, it’s used in desserts like the Vietnamese “che” and as thickening agents in soups in other cuisine. In Vietnamese, we call it “suong sam,” in Thai and Laos, “bai yanang,” in Khmer, “voar yeav”. I grew up eating both this and black grass jelly from the can. But we can do better by way of the plant.

Green Grass Jelly

A few years ago I got my hands on a live plant at a flea market in Orange County. I also acquired a couple more via eBay and Amazon. It’s a sun-loving plant, and thrives with a lot of water. My dad lives in Seattle and is still able to grow a healthy plant, though. If you don’t want to deal with keeping it alive, you can also buy the harvested leaves.

Contrary to the difficulty level of making black grass jelly, the preparation for green grass jelly takes minutes, and the waiting time a few hours. The drawback if you want to grow the plant is that it needs a ton of sun and is most productive in the spring and summer, though I’ve harvested in the autumn. After I turn the leaves into a jelly, I sprinkle it with some sugar and eat out of the spoon. Mixing in a good coconut cream also makes for a delicious dessert. Alas, you can also use this as a bubble tea topping.

Green Grass Jelly Plant

How To Make Green Grass Jelly
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Yield: 2

How To Make Green Grass Jelly

Ingredients

  • Mature green grass jelly leaves (thicker and darker green) 85 grams
  • Water 1 liter (unless your leaves are younger, which means it’ll have more water content and less jelly content - in which case, you can use down to 500 mL)

Instructions

  1. Wash the leaves
  2. Blend the leaves and ¾ of the water until the fibers are fine
  3. Put a fine mesh filter over a container and pour your jelly mixture into it
  4. Massage the fibers with your hands to juice out the jelly content
  5. Add in the rest of the water and massage the rest of the jelly
  6. Cover the container and let it set in the fridge for a few hours
https://www.milkonthemoon.com/recipes/how-to-make-green-grass-jelly/

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ly

Ly is a software engineer by day. By night she dreams of traveling the world, eating good food, and drinking boba.

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