Weekend Herb Blogging - Boiled Chinese Yellow Pear with Chinese Almond Dessert

Mr Pancakes is getting the hang of it and is excited every time WHB comes around. What a great way to share! This week's Weekend Herb Blogging#212 will be hosted by Laurie from Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska. WHB is a weekly food blog event that showcases information and recipes about herbs, vegetables, fruits and other plant ingredients. WHB is organized by Haalo of Cook(almost)AnythingAtLeastOnce. The rules for taking part can be found here.
For this week, Mr Pancakes would like to share a all-Asian cast: Boiled Chinese Pear with Chinese Almond Dessert.


The Chinese Yellow Pear is used here as the main ingredient.  A picture of the pear can be seen here, Mr Pancakes is ashamed that he forgot to take a picture of the fruits before cooking them.  The yellow Chinese pear has a thin yellow skin.  The white flesh is slightly grainy, as compared to the green pears. It is oblong, unlike the Asian (nashi) pear.  It is believed that the yellow chinese pear relieves cough and calm wheezing.


Another main part of this dessert the Chinese Almond (杏仁) or apricot seed.  There are two types of chinese almond, mainly those from the south (sweet taste) and the north (bitter taste).  The Chinese almond seeds from the north is believed to have similar properties to the yellow Chinese pear, they stop cough and 'moisten' the intestines. A mixture of north and south Chinese almond seeds are used here to balance the taste.

A sweet, 'cooling' dessert and apparently to relieve cough and irritation to the throat


Boiled Chinese Yellow Pear with Chinese Almond (炖雪梨)
This is a long time childhood dessert. All kids love sweet stuff! This is a healthy, nutritional dessert and it cleanse the palate nicely, especially after a heavy meal.

You will need: (serves 4)


2 yellow Chinese Pears
50 gram rock sugar
500ml water
8 Chinese red dates (optional)


1.  Peel the skins off the pears, core and cut into quarters.
2.  Bring water to boil in a pot.
3.  Put all ingredients into the pot and cook over low heat for 20 minutes.
4. Serve hot or put into the fridge to chill and serve cold.