Some people like to bake cookies, I like to whip up botanical jelly bowls. It's a dessert format found all over Taiwan—not quite shaved ice, but involving it. More like a cold, sweet soup featuring slippery things like ai yu, chewy things like sweet potato balls, earthy things like Job's tears, and complex things like longan honey. It's a landscape as much as it is a food. It's a moment as much as it is a dish. Chaotic good to the core, and kind of a hot (cold) mess.

Below are recipes for assembling three different bowls from a simple set of four ingredients: grass jelly, ai yu jelly, mulberry jam, and oolong tea.

First, create your components. Then, collage them together in whatever way delights you. I've included three different suggestions to get you started. There are no rules, but if you wanted a tip, I'd say group your ingredients together in the dish with consideration for the composition. It will all get dashed to pieces by bite number two, but the initial impression should be one of overflowing bounty, where the color and texture of each individual ingredient is highlighted.

Any measurements for the amount of jelly, sweetener, jam, and lemon juice for the bowls are starting points. Please adjust depending on the size of your individual serving bowls, the sweetness of your ingredients, and your tastes.

Oolong Jelly Bowl, Three Ways

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients

• For the Grass Jelly
  • 50 g of Grass Jelly
  • 1500 ml of water plus 30 ml
  • 0.125 tsp of lye water (optional)
  • 80 g rock sugar
  • 50 g sweet potato starch
• For the Oolong Simple Syrup
  • 0.5 tbsp of BANGtea's Red Oolong, fall '23
  • 250 ml water
  • 250 g of sugar
• For the Ai Yu Jelly
  • 12.8 g of Ai Yu Jelly Seeds
  • 1000 ml Fiji Water
  • Optionally, use the oolong tea to make tea jelly by first cold-brewing it with Fiji Water (or hard water). Use the cold-brewed tea to rinse the Ai Yu Jelly Seeds.
• 4 tbsp of Yun Hai Taiwanese mulberry jam
• Garnish #1: Berry Milk Bowl
  • 4 tbsp of half and half, heavy cream, or creamer
• Garnish #2: Nectarine Grass Jelly Granita
  • Ripe, sun-warmed nectarines, chopped into a smallish dice
• Garnish #3: Lemon Oolong Jelly
  • 1 bundle of mint
  • 4 slices of lemon
  • 4 tbsp of lemon juice

Instructions

Make the Grass Jelly:

1. Submerge grass jelly herb in cold water to rinse, then drain. Place in a large stockpot. Fill with 1500 ml of water. Add lye water. Bring to a boil, then simmer, partially covered for a minimum of 45 minutes, or up to two hours.
2. Strain the liquid, removing all the solids. Put liquid back into pot and onto medium heat on the stove. Add in rock sugar and stir to dissolve.
3. Make a starch slurry by mixing sweet potato starch with 30 ml of water. Stir until loose and homogeneous, like milk.
4. While the grass jelly tea is boiling, drizzle the starch mixture in slowly, while stirring. Boil for another minute or so for the starch to cook through.
5. Pour into molds, let cool, and refrigerate overnight.

Make the Oolong Simple Syrup:

1. Brew a strong pot of oolong tea, according to the ratio in the recipe. This tea will be twice as strong as normal tea because we are trying to capture a strong tea flavor. Strain the tea and put tea into a stockpot that will fit at least double its volume. Add sugar. Heat the tea and sugar until the sugar is dissolved. Set aside to cool.

Make the Ai Yu Jelly:

1. Make sure you are using hard water or mineral water (Fiji water works great). Pour water into a bowl or other mixing receptacle. Put Ai Yu seeds into a rinsing bag, tie off, and abrade in the water for 15 minutes. Remove washing bag. Strain if desired. Pour into mold and set aside to set.

Oolong Jelly Bowl Version 1: Berry Milk

This one is based on fruit milks found throughout Taiwan, and the convention of serving grass jelly with a little bit of coffee creamer, poured over just before digging in. The berry jam and the cream combine to create an almost milkshake like flavor, balanced out by light textures and mild flavors of the jewel-like jellies. Note: never use dairy and lemon juice in the same bowl, or the dairy will curdle.

1. Make sure all ingredients are well-chilled
2. Smear a heaping tbsp of mulberry jelly into the bottom of the bowl.
3. Layer crushed or shaved ice on the bottom of the bowl, optional.
4. Fill half of the bowl with grass jelly.
5. Fill half of the bowl with ai yu jelly.
6. Add 2 tbsp of oolong simple syrup.
7. Drizzle a tablespoon of cream over the assembly, and watch it reveal the landscape
8. Squeeze a little fresh lemon and lay a lemon slice on top.

Oolong Jelly Bowl Version 2: Peach Grass Jelly Granita

A dark bowl of grass jelly looks dimensionless, as deeply reflective as obsidian. But throw some peaches on it to bring it back up to the surface of the earth. In this bowl, I make ice out of grass jelly and then crush it as the base, creating a texture reminiscent of a slushy.

1. Cut 500 ml of grass jelly into ice cube sized chunks and freeze. Or, if you don't have an ice crusher, make granita.
2. Just before assembly, put the grass jelly ice into an ice crushe, or remove granita from the freezer.
3. Layer the shaved grass jelly ice into the bottom of a bowl.
4. Fill half of the bowl with ai yu jelly.
5. Fill the other half of the bowl with grass jelly
6. Pour 2 tbsp of oolong syrup over the jellies.
7. Dot the surface of the jelly with mulberry jam.
8. Put a 1/4 cup of chopped peaches or nectarines on top.
9. Enjoy the taste of summer.

Variations

Oolong Jelly Bowl Version 3: Lemon Oolong shaved ice

A variation on the classic lemon honey Ai Yu Jelly combination. The mulberry jam and oolong tea syrup combine effortlessly into the familiar flavors of mulberry fruit tea (a popular drink around Taiwan), and the lemon brings the entire assembly into the sunshine. I love how the purple mulberry shows through the clear Ai Yu jelly, creating a mixture of colors, dark and light.

1. Run 2 cups of ice through an ice crusher, or used crush ice, or crush large ice cubes with a heavy mortar and pestle.
2. Heap ice into the bowl.
3. Spoon mulberry jam around the outside of the ice heap.
4. Fill half of the bowl with ai yu jelly.
5. Fill the other half of the bowl with grass jelly
6. Pour 2 tbsp of oolong syrup over the jellies.
7. Squeeze juice from 1/4 of a lemon over the jellies.
8. Garnish with mint and a lemon slice.
9. Marvel as the lemon, oolong, and mulberry mix together into a perfect fruit tea.

Recipe by: Lisa Cheng Smith
Image Credit: Lisa Cheng Smith