a common Chinese sweet similar to rice pudding. The eight jewels alludes to the eight various healthy components that make up the dish. On Laba festival, which falls on December 8 on the lunar calendar, it is customarily consumed. However, keep in mind that there should be eight primary ingredients (thus the name), and that you should control the time at which each ingredient is added to the pot to ensure that everything is cooked perfectly at the very end. Jujube, chestnuts, dates, dried longan meat, various dried fruits, peanuts, almonds, walnuts, melon-seed meat, pine nuts, lotus seeds, sesame seeds, kidney beans, black beans, and a variety of other ingredients are also frequently used.
| Prep Time: | 10 mins |
| Cook Time: | 2 hrs 5 mins |
| Additional Time: | 3 hrs |
| Total Time: | 5 hrs 15 mins |
| Servings: | 10 |
| Yield: | 10 servings |
Ingredients
- ¼ cup dried small red beans (adzuki beans)
- water to cover
- ¼ cup barley
- ½ cup glutinous sweet rice
- ¼ cup dried mung bean
- ¼ cup oats
- ¼ cup millet
- ¼ cup dried small pearl tapioca
- ½ cup brown sugar, or more to taste
- ¼ cup raisins
Instructions
- Place red beans into a large container and cover with several inches of cool water; let stand 3 hours to overnight. Drain and rinse.
- Combine red beans and barley in a pot; add enough water to fill 1/2 the pot. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover pot, and simmer until beans and barley are tender, about 1 hour.
- Mix rice into bean-barley mixture; add more water if it has all been absorbed. Cook rice mixture for 20 minutes. Add mung beans; cook for 20 minutes.
- Mix oats, millet, and tapioca into rice mixture; cook, stirring every 5 minutes, until all the grains are softened, about 20 minutes. Add more water to reach desired thickness of porridge. Stir brown sugar and raisins into porridge; cook for 5 minutes more. Remove pot from heat, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking. Serve hot or chilled.
- You may need to visit a Chinese store to find some of these ingredients.
- There are many versions. This version uses many different dried grains; other versions are more fruit-heavy.
- Test if the red bean and barley are starting to get soft after simmering 1 hour. If not, keep cooking and test every 20 minutes until they are.