Red Dates With Warm Osmanthus Blossom Syrup Recipe

Fiona Reilly
Red Dates With Warm Osmanthus Blossom Syrup Recipe
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  • Yield:Serves 4
  • Active time:40 minutes
  • Total time:1 hour

[Photograph: Fiona Reilly]

This traditional Shanghai dish celebrates the fragrance of herbal-sweet osmanthus flowers along with the deep red, honey-sweetness of red dates (also known as jujubes). Served hot, each date bursts with a soft core of sticky rice, drenched in osmanthus-infused syrup. It may look impressively difficult, but it's actually very easy to make. This dish is part of our seven-course Mid-Autumn Festival feast.

Why It Works

This recipe appears in:
How to Host a Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival Feast
  • Removing the pits of the dates creates a space for the glutinous rice dough filling.
  • Par-cooking the dates makes it easier to remove the pits and prevents overcooking the rice filling later on.

    • Ingredients

    • 7 ounces granulated sugar (approximately 1 cup)
    • 1 tablespoon dried osmanthus flowers
    • 24 large red dates
    • 1 3/4 ounces glutinous rice flour

    Directions

    1. 1.

      Adding 1/2 cup water and sugar to a saucepan, bring to boil then reduce heat and simmer for three minutes. Add osmanthus blossoms, stir, and set aside.

    2. 2.

      Soak red dates in 1 cup boiling water for 15 minutes. Drain and cool. Then, using pointed scissors, cut dates upon along one side and carefully remove seed.

    3. 3.

      Combine rice flour and 2 tablespoons water, mixing until it reaches a Play-Do consistency.

    4. 4.

      Pinch off small pieces of rice paste and roll into cylinders. Place cylinders into each date and press closed.

    5. 5.

      Bring a large saucepan of water to a boil. Add dates, boil for 3 minutes, and drain. Serve immediately with osmanthus syrup poured over the top.

    Fiona Reilly
    Contributor

    Fiona Reilly is a xiao long bao expert and street food tragic who divides her time between Shanghai and Australia, trawling the streets for good eats and great stories for local and international publications, as well as her award-winning blog ‘Life on Nanchang Lu.'

    She has travelled China top to bottom and end to end, eating all the way, including an epic six-month food discovery voyage around China in an RV, a mode of travel entirely novel to the world's most populous nation.

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