Recipe: how to cook Chinese food, Tanghulu (dessert)

4 min readAug 3, 2018

Bingtanghulu is called Tanghulu for short. It pronounces bing tang hu lur.It is a traditional Chinese snack which origins from Beijing and Tianjin. It is a common snack in the north of China in winter. It tastes sour and sweet.

Bingtanghulu has a long history and was recorded in the Song dynasty. Skewer fruit together with bamboo sticks, such as hawthorn, tangerine, grape, Chinese yam, dioscorea batatas seed, walnut, red bean paste and so on. It is coated with hard sugar syrup, that makes it look crystal bright. It is sold in tea houses, theatres, streets, alleys and many places. It was even more popular during the Republican period. Today we could buy it on the streets, convenience stores and supermarkets. The link is Bingtanghulu vendor’s hawking in Beijing. http://m.ximalaya.com/sound/6895339

INGREDIENTS:

hawthorn
200g rock sugar or soft sugar
200g water
bamboo stick

INSTRUCTIONS:

Step 1: clean hawthorn.

Step 2: dry hawthorn with a kitchen towel.

Step 3: remove the hawthorn stem.

Step 4: halve the hawthorn.

Step 5: remove the pit.

Step 6: skewer the hawthorns.

Step 7: you could put red bean paste and other fruit in the middle.

Step 8: or you don’t cut and remove the pits.

Step 9: prepare all ingredients.

Step 10: put sugar and water in the wok. turn on heat to medium.

Step 11: stir it.

Step 12: after sugar dissolve, turn to low heat and boil.

Step 13: boil to amber colour and thick.

Step 14: get some sugar solution and dip into cool water. the sugar solution will solidify immediately. bite it, if it is sticky, you need to keep boiling it. if it is crispy, you could do the following step.