Steamed Asian Pears Recipe (蒸雪梨 zhēng xuělí)

This steamed Asian pears recipe is only one of several ways to make this tasty traditional Chinese cough remedy, but it's the simplest and most flavourful.

Warming and soothing for sore throats, steamed Asian pears are simple enough to whip up even at your groggiest.

The fillings vary, and sometimes also include tremella (snow fungus, a popular ingredient in tong sui, Chinese sweet soups), chuan bei (the bulb of a plant that's sometimes used in Chinese herbal cough medicines) and lotus seeds, but I keep mine simple with a few dried fruits.

In this case, I used traditional dried fruits like goji berries and jujubes, but I like adding raisins too sometimes – it depends on what I feel like and what I have in the storage cupboard.

You can either leave the pears skin-on as I do, peel them, or even chop them up and make more of a soup-like dish by adding more water and sugar to the pot. The only downside to the last option is that the pear flavour is less concentrated since you're adding more water. And if you peel the skin, you're losing some of the nutrients that come with it, although it's totally up to you.

There's also a Korean version of this called baesuk, which often adds ginger and pine nuts.

You can also watch me make this on my YouTube channel, Tashcakes:

Ready? Let's go.

(Serves two.)

Ingredients:

2 large Asian pears, gently scrubbed in cold water and dried
Small handful of goji berries
2 jujubes (seedless)
Rock sugar (to taste)

Method:

1. Slice the tops of the pears off and keep them aside. Put each pear in its own little heatproof bowl.

2. Using a spoon or small knife, scoop out the core, being careful not to cut all the way through the bottom or the sides of the pear. Reserve and finely chop up the extra fruit you removed but discard the tough core.

3. Put the chopped up fruit back into the pears, evenly dividing between the two, followed by the goji berries and jujubes (one jujube per pear). Add in a few small chunks of yellow rock sugar to each.

4. Top up the wells with a little water before placing the pear tops back on like little hats.

5. Place in a steamer and steam for 45 minutes, or until the pears are tender.

6. Let the bowls cool down until they're just about cool enough to handle and serve warm.

Enjoy, and have fun.