Lotus steamed rice.

I've always loved lotus steamed rice, but it was hard to find it in restaurants or eat at home for many reasons in Korea. (Korean supermarket usually only sells lotus roots.) And here in US, even harder.
I know I can get some dried lotus leaves on online, but I can't trust where they are from.  

So I bought a bunch of frozen lotus leaves from an organic lotus farm in Korea.
Lotus is so wonderful. It looks great, tastes great and has many benefits.

This is the list of lotus leaves benefits.
- Healthy heart (Increase blood flow and lowers blood pressure)
- Reduces anxiety and stress
- Promotes healthy liver functions
- Stopping internal bleeding
- Treats diarrhea
- Treats ringworm
- Helps weight loss by increasing metabolism
- Has anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties. 




I thawed some for lotus tea, but I decided to use one for today's breakfast.

Lotus steamed rice can be easy or difficult depending on what you put inside of it. But I don't want to get complicated in the morning.
I just used the rice that I cooked last night.
The original recipe uses sweet rice, chestnuts, ginkgoes, and dates, but instead I mixed sushi rice, sweet rice, rye, millet and dates, and cooked them with rice cooker. I could definitely smell the lotus better.
Korean version doesn't use spices, because we eat it with Banchan(small dishes).
I see Chinese version is more like a complete dish by itself by using meat, rice, vegetable and spices inside. 

So here's the lotus leaves. They are a little bit ripped, but no problem for steamed rice.

Dark green and smells good. I washed it just with clean water.

 

I put the rice that I made last night and seasoned with a bit of salt, in the middle of the lotus leaf.
(With my Cuckoo rice cooker, I don't need to soak those grains over night to cook, but normally it is better so soak them enough before you cook.)

You can wrap it like spring rolls or just simply fold like I did.

And steam it for 15~20 minutes.

Ta- da!

Beautiful aroma of lotus soaked in the rice.

Since I didn't use spice, I put the leaf in hot water after I finished the rice.
And this is my today's tea!! 

You can enjoy this nice organic tea at Handol.

Coming soon!








 

List of Lotus Leaves Benefits Healthy Heart (Increases blood flow and lowers blood pressure) Reduces anxiety and stress Promotes healthy Liver functions Stopping internal bleeding (For Example: Urine in the blood) Treats diarrhea Treats ringworm Helps weight Loss by increasing metabolism Has anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties....

Read More at www.divineglowinghealth.com/lotus-leaves-health-benefits-and-weight-loss-effectiveness/ © Divine Glowing Health

List of Lotus Leaves Benefits Healthy Heart (Increases blood flow and lowers blood pressure) Reduces anxiety and stress Promotes healthy Liver functions Stopping internal bleeding (For Example: Urine in the blood) Treats diarrhea Treats ringworm Helps weight Loss by increasing metabolism Has anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties....

Read More at www.divineglowinghealth.com/lotus-leaves-health-benefits-and-weight-loss-effectiveness/ © Divine Glowing Health

Healty Enzyme Tea!!

Hello!

While I am preparing the tearoom, I decide to make some special drinks for extra healthiness at our tea menu.

Recently many Koreans became so into enzymes, because many mass medias started reintroducing their benefits and easy way to make it. Although many Korean dishes are based on vegetables and Kimchi, Dwenjang(fermented bean paste), Kochujang(fermented pepper paste), Maesilchung(fermented plum)and soy sauce are already full of enzymes, the benefits of enzymes make people want them even more!!

Here's the benefits of them.

1. Digest food
2. Break down toxins
3. Cleanse the blood
4. Strengthen the immune system
5. Build protein into muscle
6. Contract muscles
6. Eliminate carbon dioxide from the lungs
7. Reduce stress on the pancreas and other vital organs.

8. dissolve fats

9. resist disease 

10. slow aging

They sound amazing.

Of course, you can take enzyme pills or have them by eating raw foods. 

But, won't be better if we can have them in delicious way?

Before I introduce this method, I should say this could be a new good ingredient in your food pantry  but not a super magical medicinal thing. I prefer to call this a healthy syrup than enzymes. 

This method is using the fact that fermented foods have been already proved that they have digestive enzymes helping human health, but it doesn't mean this syrup only has enzymes in it.

It contains lots of sugar. Even though I read that sugar in this syrup became a healthier version like honey, I am not a scientist and I have no idea if that is true or not. 

But because of Osmotic pressure, good things, such as minerals, vitamins and nice taste will come out and become a lovely healthy syrup with enzymes.

The benefits and taste are all different depending on main ingredients.

For example, the most famous ingredient of this methods is a plum.

Koreans are using the plum syrup pretty much for everything when you need a sweet flavor. 

It gives depth in taste, because it is not just simply sweet but has more complicated sweetness.

Also it helps digesting food and gives energy.

So anyway, shall we start?

All I need is fruits or whatever ingredient I want to ferment, same amount of organic sugar, and a clean jar that is big enough for the two ingredients and a bit more space for fermenting reaction.

Today, I made pine needles and Omija(Schizandra berries) enzyme syrups.

 Both are from trustworthy farms in Korea. 

  

Dried Omija(Schizandra berries) 

  

Chopped and dried Pine needles

I started cleaning the pine needles two days ago. I soaked and drained them around 7 times during one and half day, and started dry them dry since yesterday afternoon(don't need to be completely dry). I cleaned them up this way to get rid off pine raisin, because pine raisin could be harmful for some people. 

I used around 200g of pine needles, so I also need same amount of sugar.

In this case, since I bought dry pine needle, I made a sugar syrup for some liquid. (If the ingredient is not dried and contains lots of water, you don't need to make sugar syrup)  For the syrup, I dissolved half of the sugar into quarter amount of water; 100g sugar + 50g water. 

 

So, mix half of the sugar with pine needles and pour the sugar syrup on top.

Close the lid, and that's it!!

So simple! 

All I need is waiting for at least 4 to 6 months. 

Same way for Omija syrup(My favorite!!)

 

However, instead of soaking the berries in water to clean, I used a bit of vinegar in water and cleaned them quickly. (Omija immediately throw its juice out when it soaks in water!!)

 

It looks like it has more sugar than the pine needles, because I didn't use sugar syrup for this. I didn't want to lose the juice while I am draining it completely, so I just mixed same amount of sugar right after cleaning it.

Now just store them somewhere safe and wait for summer!

This healthy refreshing summer tea will wait for you at Handol in this summer!!