Black sesame soup: toasted black sesame seeds ground with toasted glutinous rice and simmered with water and sugar into a warm, jet-black pudding-soup. A dim sum sweet that drinks like velvet.

Why glutinous rice in black sesame soup?

Toasted and blended with the sesame, it thickens the soup and gives the gloss; without it the sesame separates instead of turning silky.

Is black sesame soup sweet?

Yes — it is a sweet, faintly bitter closer, sweetened with sugar; the bitterness is the toasted sesame itself, which is the point.

Black Sesame Soup (Zhi Ma Wu)

Name: Black Sesame Soup (Zhi Ma Wu)
Total time: 40 min
Yield: Serves 4
Cuisine: Chinese
Ingredients: 100 g black sesame seeds; 50 g long-grain rice, soaked 4 hours (or overnight) and drained; 800 ml water; 50 g rock sugar or caster sugar (the rock's cleaner sweetness the traditional argument); A pinch of salt (the sweetness's own frame); 2 tbsp (30 ml) coconut milk, at the final stir — the richer school; Tang yuan's small balls (#121's record), simmered into the bowl — the dessert house's fuller argument

Chinese · Easy · Serves 4

The dessert soup canon's darkest silk and the sesame's own finest hour: the black sesame seeds toasted and ground to the fragrant, oil-dark paste, simmered with the rice's body to the glossy, jet-black soup — the zhi ma wu whose warm, nutty sweetness the Cantonese dessert house serves at the tong sui's deepest register and the home kitchen makes at the grinder's patience. The technique is the toast's watch and the rice's thickening, the soup's whole argument at the two disciplines.

Quantities live in the recipe card.

The soup's body

The optional enrichment

the richer school
the dessert house's fuller argument

- The sesame's toast — the perfume's whole clock: the seeds toasted at the dry pan's gentle patience, 4–6 minutes at the low flame's constant shake — the seeds' first pop and the kitchen's rising perfume the toast's own signal, the colour's argument invisible at the black seed (the nose the only gauge) — and the over-toasted seed's bitterness the four seconds past the pop's certain end. - The rice's soak and its grinding duty: the soaked rice drained (the rice the soup's silky body — the thickener's traditional argument at the Cantonese kitchen's own law), and the blender's plan: the seeds and the rice ground together at the water's gradual addition to the smooth, dark cream.

Step 1. The grind — the seeds and the rice's dark cream. The toasted seeds and the drained rice blended at the 400 ml water's first argument — the high-speed's 2 minutes to the fine, fragrant paste (the seeds' oils releasing to the dark sheen) — the remaining water's addition at the second blend's thinner cream, and the whole strained through the fine sieve at the silk's insurance. Checkpoint — the strained cream runs the smooth, unctuous dark with no grit's argument at the fingertip's rub — the seeds' hulls' fine fragments the sieve's whole purpose, and the unstrained soup the sandy end.

Step 2. The simmer's thickening — 15 minutes at the gentle patience. The cream brought to the barest simmer at the medium-low's constant whisk (the rice's starch's slow awakening — the bottom's catch the whisk's constant argument), and held at the gentle bubble's 12–15 minutes to the soup's glossy thickening — the sugar and salt's dissolve at the final minutes, the coconut milk's stir at the school's argument. Checkpoint — the soup runs the glossy, coat-the-spoon black — the thickness's law at the ribbon's slow close behind the spoon — and the tongue's first taste carries the seeds' deep, roasted nuttiness at the sugar's gentle frame — the raw-flour's starchy note the under-simmered soup's own tell (the full 15 minutes' law).

Step 3. The warm service. The soup served hot at the small bowls — or the chilled argument at the summer's other school — the tang yuan's simmered addition at the dessert house's fuller bowl. Checkpoint — the eating test: the soup's warm silk and the black sesame's roasted depth — the nuttiness the sugar's sweetness never buries — the tong sui's darkest, most comforting argument at the one bowl. Chef’s Note — the rice's thickening is the soup's own architecture and the tong sui canon's shared law: the soaked rice's starch, ground with the seeds and simmered to its gelatinised body, gives the zhi ma wu its silky, coat-the-spoon gloss — the traditional Cantonese thickener at the cornstarch's glossier but shallower argument — and the soup's whole texture runs at the rice's honest proportion (the 50 g's measure the working balance: the thicker school's 70, the drinkable's 40). The same rice-and-nut doctrine runs the walnut soup's and the peanut soup's sisters at the tong sui canon's other arguments.