Cantonese Qing Bu Liang | A Slow-Boiled Sweet Soup with Golden Slab Sugar

Some sweet soups are loud. This one is quiet.

Cantonese qing bu liang is a soft, milky bowl of white fungus and dried goods, boiled down until the soup turns thick and glossy and every spoonful comes up silky. It is the kind of thing you make on a slow afternoon, when you want the kitchen to smell faintly of caramel and you are in no hurry to eat.

The whole dish turns on patience and one good sugar.

The sugar

Golden Slab Sugar (冰片糖) is hand-boiled cane sugar, pressed into slabs. It melts slowly into the soup with a light caramel note and a rounded, mellow sweetness, so the sugar sits behind the ingredients instead of jumping ahead of them.

That slow melt matters here. A quick, sharp sugar would flatten the soup. The slab dissolves gently over the twenty-five minute simmer, and by the end the sweetness feels like part of the broth rather than something stirred in on top.

Shop Golden Slab Sugar 600g

What makes it silky

The body of qing bu liang comes almost entirely from the white fungus. Snip it small and soak it on its own, and it swells and softens until it can give up its gel to the pot. The job's tears, lily, lotus seed, yam, and solomon's seal all soak together beforehand, so nothing is still hard in the middle when the soup is done. Cut the yam and solomon's seal small and they take on the sweetness faster.

Red dates and goji are the finish. Cook them apart for a few minutes and stir them in at the very end. Boiled with everything else for too long, they can turn the soup slightly sour and cloud its colour, so they go in last, bright and whole.

Recipe

Cantonese Qing Bu Liang Sweet Soup Serves 3 to 4. About 3 hours soaking, then 30 minutes cooking.

Ingredients - White fungus (tremella) 10g - Job's tears (coix seed) 20g - Dried lily bulb 10g - Dried yam 15g - Lotus seed 10g - Solomon's seal (yuzhu) 15g - Red dates 20g - Goji (wolfberry) 15g - Golden Slab Sugar (冰片糖) 80g - Water for simmering

Method 1. Snip the white fungus into small pieces and soak it separately in cold water so it swells evenly. 2. Cut the yam and solomon's seal small. Soak them together with the job's tears, lily, and lotus seed in cold water for 3 hours. 3. Add all the soaked ingredients to the pot. Add 80g Golden Slab Sugar and pour in enough water to cover. Simmer over medium-low for 25 minutes, until the soup thickens and clings to the spoon. 4. In a separate pot, cook the red dates and goji for 3 to 5 minutes, then stir them into the soup. Cooking them with everything else from the start can turn the soup sour. 5. Serve warm, thick, and glossy.

A good bowl should coat the spoon and cool into something almost jelly-soft at the edges. If it looks thin, give it a few more minutes uncovered.

Closing

Make it once and you will feel where the timing lives: the long cold soak, the low simmer, the late handful of red dates and goji. None of it is difficult. It only asks that you slow down for an afternoon and let the slab sugar do its quiet work.

Ship Brand (帆船牌) is the retail line of Yuen Tung Sugar Factory Industrial Company Limited. Sugar refined in Hong Kong since 1987. Shop the collection.