Non-hakka "Lui Cha", a.k.a "Thunder Soup"

I’m not a Hakka but I love this Hakka Cuisine – “LUI CHA”! I can’t recall the first time having it but I fell-in-love with Simple Life’s Lui Cha! The aroma from the tea plus the crunchy peanuts and crunchy assorted vegetables, it is just awesome and to die for…..

Since MCO (from 18th March 2020), I have been craving for Lui Cha. So, I start to read up on the Lui Cha and start my research for the most simplest Lui Cha recipe. As a beginner, I focus on the main ingredients and start my “hunt” for the basic items. The long queue at the nearest Tesco and failure to procure the items required made me want to give up! But during Raya holiday, I decided to drop by the Village Grocers to try my luck – VOILA! I found the main ingredients….And so, my experiment began……

MY SIMPLE RECIPE

Ingredients

Ingredients for the “thunder soup/lui cha”

Bunch of Mint leaves
Bunch of Coriander leaves (keep the roots too)
50g bag of basil leaves
2-3 Chinese table spoon of toasted sesame seeds
2-3 Chinese table spoon of pan-roasted peanuts (remove skin).
pinch of salt
4-5 cloves of garlic – chopped
300ml water
2 tsp cooking oil

Ingredients for the condiments

Choi Sum – chopped stem to cube, and chopped leaves thinly
Long green beans – chopped to cube
Preserved radish
roasted peanuts
toasted sesame seeds
Cube and fried hard tofu – also known as ‘Tau Kang”
8 cloves of garlic – chopped
cooking oil

Methods

Clean and chop/slice leaves and above vegetables into small pieces.
Heat up wok and toast the sesame seeds. When the sesame start popping up (like dancing in the wok) and turn brownish, remove from wok/pan.
Pour in peanut and roasted on low heat. Swirl the peanuts to avoid burning. When the skin start cracking, it’s ready to be removed from wok/pan.
Clean the peanut shell/skin residual from the wok and add in the cooking oil.
When the oil is heated (test with a chopstick – its ready if the chopsticks had bubbly air rising to the oil surface). Fry the cubed tofu until golden brown. Remove and leave a bit of oil on the wok/pan to stir fry the leaves and vegetables.
Saute garlic to golden brown and add in coriander roots, followed by coriander, mint leaves and basil leaves. Cook until the leaves become almost like paste and remove from wok and set aside to cool.
Stir-fry all vegetables with garlic, one-by-one and set aside.
Pour the paste from Step 6 into blender with peanuts and sesame seeds. Add in the tea leaves (oolong, green tea or any tea that you fancy and available in your pantry). As I plan to freeze my paste, I add in half amount of water to have a thick paste. Start the blender, and wake up the whole neighbourhood! You can smell the familiar “Lui Cha” fragrance when you open the lid! I’m ecstatic at this point! The familiar fragrance just made me jumping with joy!
You may serve with white rice or brown rice to your likings.