Corn, poria & aged tangerine peel drink
Sweet corn, silk and all, simmered with poria and tangerine peel into a naturally sweet, sugar-free drink — and the corn doubles as your snack.
- 55 min
- Serves 3
- Simmer
- Easy
Why it suits you: Phlegm-Dampness brings drowsiness, a heavy body and a sticky mouth, and sweets and iced drinks make it worse. Hong Kong is still warm and humid at Autumn Equinox; this sugar-free corn drink strengthens digestion and drains damp, and the corn is your snack, so there's no need for dessert.
Method
Prep 10 min · Cook 45 min- 1Soak the tangerine peel for 10 minutes until soft and scrape off a little of the white pith. Rinse the poria.
- 2Cut each corn cob into 3–4 pieces, rinsing and keeping the silk. Peel the carrot and cut into chunks.
- 3Put everything in a pot with the water, bring to the boil over high heat, then simmer gently for 40 minutes. No sugar needed.
- 4Strain the drink into a flask to sip like tea, and pack the corn and carrot in a box as your snack.
Chef's tips
- The corn silk does the damp-draining, so don't strip it off — rinse it and simmer it with the corn.
- Make it the night before and keep it in the fridge; reboil in the morning before filling your flask.
The TCM view
Sweet corn is sweet and neutral and settles the stomach; corn silk is sweet, bland and neutral and drains damp; poria is sweet, bland and neutral and strengthens the spleen while draining damp; aged tangerine peel is pungent, bitter and warm and moves qi, dries damp and resolves phlegm; carrot is sweet and neutral. Mild and balanced, it clears damp without drying you out — fine for autumn.
