White Fungus Fruits Porridge

Every time when I make white fungus fruits porridge, I think about my Grandma. She is the first and the only person who makes this porridge for me, even though it’s not complex to cook.

I remembered the first time I tried this porridge was when I was in elementary school in a summer. My grandma brought me a bowl of cool white fungus fruit porridge. In that bowl, there were Chinese date, apples, pears, oranges, and banana. The white fungus was stewed very smooth, fruits were soft, banana smelled sweet; and the porridge was cold, sweet and sour. It feels good to have it in a hot summer.

Years later, I went to the University in northeast China. Before the summer vacation comes, my grandma always asked through the phone what I wanted to eat after coming back home, and I always say white fungus fruits porridge, and she made it for me every time.

My grandma concerned about keeping good health very much. She had read the newspaper every day about regimen, and cut those useful ones and pasted on her “Health Notebook”. She also did QiGong I remembered. Every morning she toke her recorder to the park which was in front of our apartment to practice.

I loved to stay in my grandparents’ home. They used to buy children’s books, necklaces, toys, clothes, and buy what I liked to eat. The most important thing was they were patient to read stories for me and to teach me drawing and reading tongue twisters, and to play games with me. Their patient to me was more than anyone else, even than my parents.

My grandma is 80 something right now. She got Alzheimer disease 15 years ago. She can’t walk or speak very well. I’ve seen her less and less since I went to university. I dream about her and my grandpa lot, until tears woke me up. I really miss the time spent with them when I was a kid. I can’t say how much I love them. It’s the feeling that can’t be described.

White Fungus Porridge is very popular in China because of its medical benefits. It nourishes the body. It’s not only good for lung and healing dry throat, but also good for women, vegetarian, and vegan people getting collagen from it instead of from animals.

Here is White Fungus Fruits Porridge recipe for you:

Ingredients:

• 1 dried white fungus
• 3 peaches
• 2 bananas
• ½ cup of rock Sugar (more or less as you like)
• A handful of dates, raisin, Goji, and arillus Longan (found in Chinese supermarket)

Prepare:

1. Soak white fungus
   Put the dry white fungus in a large bowl with enough cold water. With its expansion, you may need to add more water to cover the top. After soaking for one hour, you will see it doubles the size, like a sponge.

2. Cut the bottom
   The bottom of white fungus is still firm after soaking. It should be taken out by scissors.

3. Tear white fungus
   After trimming the bottom of fungus, the rest needs to be teared into small pieces, and be washed again.

*You can also soak date, Goji, arillus Longan, raisin or other dried fruits at the same time, if you wish. I usually don’t soak them because the boiling time is enough to let everything cooked.

Cook: (2 hours)

1. Put white fungus into a large pot, add water 1-2 times over and turn on the high heat to cook. Until the water boiled, change to medium/low heat and continue to stew white fungus about one hour until it turns gelatinous.

2. Put other dried fruits to the pot to cook with white fungus for another 30 mins.

3. Add sugar (brown sugar, rock sugar, or sugar) and fresh fruits to the porridge for the last 30 mins of cooking.

4. Turn off the heat. Cool the porridge and it will become more silky and gelatinous. (You can cook longer if you like it to be ropier.)

*The fresh fruits could be apple, pear, peach, orange, banana, papaya, or any other fruit you like. I personally like to use banana, the ripe one. Its smell makes the whole porridge taste good. Do not use bananas that are still green, you will regret it.

Here are my favorite fruit combinations:

• Apple, orange, banana + Dried fruits
• Papaya + Dried fruits
• Pear + Goji + Chinese dates
• Peach, banana + Dried fruits

*The fresh fruits can be softened easily, so they should be cooked during the last 30 mins.

Hope you Enjoy it~