← Nouns Cooking · Vietnamese

Ingredients

• 600 g fresh or frozen sugarcane, peeled, split and cut into short pieces
• 3 l Water
• 50 g corn silk (from about 5 corn cobs)
• 1 Dried monk fruit (la hán quả), cracked into pieces
• 6 pandan leaves, knotted
• 6 Dried jujubes (Korean red dates) (optional)
• 80 g rock sugar or sugar, to taste
• 400 g Ice

Method

1. Rinse the sugarcane, corn silk, monk fruit and jujubes well.
2. Put everything except the sugar and ice in a large pot with the water. Bring to the boil, then simmer gently for 40 min until the liquid is pale amber and fragrant.
3. Strain, then stir in the sugar while hot until dissolved, tasting as you go; it should be only gently sweet.
4. Cool, then chill in bottles. Serve over plenty of ice.

Tips

• Dried monk fruit, corn silk and sugarcane are sold in Vietnamese and Chinese grocers, often as a ready-mixed nước sâm pack.
• It keeps for 3–4 days in the fridge.

Sources

Written in our own words after cross-checking these recipes:

Vicky Pham Helen’s Recipes