Thick Peanut Soup 花生糊

Thick Peanut Soup

I still remember the roadside stalls selling Thick Peanut Soup 花生糊 in Chinatown where one of my grandaunts used to live. I also remember the Ah Pek (old man) who used to carry pots of the dessert on a pole on his back and my paying 20 cents for a bowl of it at the bottom of the staircase in the block of flats near where I used to stay in Toa Payoh. Now you find this in most food courts all over the island - but it just doesn't taste as good as in the dirtier old days.

I think the whole peanut version is a Hokkien dessert as it's very popular in Xiamen and Taiwan. The paste version is probably more Cantonese. I have a very kind Singaporean neighbour A who has been offering me samples of some of our hawker favourites to try (she knows people who sell them on special order) and 2 days ago she brought over a really good bean curd flower 豆腐花 that came with a bowl of peanut soup and brown sugar syrup. I gobbled it down on my own but still have peanut soup and brown sugar syrup left over.

That gave me the idea to make thick peanut soup by mixing it. It came out thick and creamy and could be eaten hot or cold.

If you have to make your own, it would require the skinless peanuts (toasted ones will give a smokey taste and a darker colour) to be soaked in hot water overnight and then boiled with pandan leaves (I prefer - it's my S.E. Asian touch) till they are soft. Add sugar to sweeten and eventually a cornstarch solution (optional) to thicken, but I find that once mixed the soup is usually thick enough without it. The air bubbles will disappear if you let it sit for a while but I didn't have the time to wait since I had a lunch appointment today.

Drizzling a syrup of your choice (e.g. gula melaka, brown sugar, ginger) over the peanut soup would add a nice touch. Supposedly this is a soup that is good for smokers though I am not so sure about the heart.