La Mousse Noire – Grass Jelly

In Mauritius, the Grass Jelly is known as “la mousse noire” (black jelly) and is sold as chilled drinks. But have you ever wondered what this sinister-looking jelly is made from? Where? How? Don’t know for you, but personally, I’ve been quite suspicious about its origin and that’s the reason for this post; going upstream in the preparation of this mysterious jelly.

 

The Grass Jelly has earned itself many names from various regions of the globe, most commonly from Asian countries like Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, China…where it is a very popular drink known for its cooling effect (its “yin” if you prefer).

In Singapore for example, the Grass Jelly is referred to as; Chin Chow (Chin Chow means grass in Hokkian) while Thais call it Chao Kuay and the Malaysian call it the Cincau without forgetting the vietnamese’ Suong Sam.

In Mauritius, we simply call it “la mousse noire”!

 

How does it look like?

Ever drank Grass Jelly? Don’t hesitate to give it a try if you haven’t tasted yet. But please don’t get frightened by its rather unconventional appearance. Most probably you will either fall upon a can of grass jelly drink or a cup; the jelly looks like small ‘blobby’ pieces of brownish, translucent crystals mixed in a sweet brown (or rather purple?) syrup.

 

The cupped style grass jelly is readily available at the University Of Mauritius Cafeteria. (Anybody knows the cost?).

As for me, I used to buy grass jelly for R3 ( $0.1) packed in plastic bags at college from someone that all those who were at Royal College Port Louis some 3 years ago will remember; “mamou”, may his soul rest in peace.

 

But hey, that’s not the only form that grass jelly can be consumed! It can very well integrate itself into various recipes, specially desserts. And that’s left to your own creativity in the art of desserts .

 

Like above, mixed with cream, fleshy-juicy mangoes, the jelly cubes makes a nice blend of colour effect among the orange mangoes and white cream.

 

And some people who prefer to eat the jelly, straight away with a spoon (or add some honey to it ).

 

Is grass jelly beneficial to the health?

• The Chinese say so…(and you know that you can count on Asians to come up with all kind of medicinal herbs ).
• Don’t forget the cooling effect of the drink (its yin)
• In Vietnam, grass jelly is believed to enhance fertility in women.
• Some people even say that it can be used to fight against diabetes (of course, don’t add sugar to the preparation: p )
• For all those on diet, trying to lose weight, grass jelly can help as well

From what is it made?

It’s not from grass ! I know, I know…I have been calling it ‘grass’ jelly so many times now that you must have been convinced about the grass and grass jelly relationship. But NO, it is instead made from leaves and the leaves come from a plant, not a grass.

The plant is from the mint-family and is known as the Menosa Chinensis. It is grown in countries is Vietnam, China and Indonesia. Two other plants used in Indonesia are Melastoma polyanthum, known as Cincau perdu, and Cyclea barbata, known as Cincau Hijau.

 

The leaves are dried up for months, boiled, juice extracted and allowed to ‘crystalise’.]

That’s how the dried leaves look like.

 

There is a guy who has actually visited one of these grass jelly factories and made some nice pictures, which unfortunately I have not yet receive permission to republish them here at the time of posting. So you will have to check the blog there itself: here’s the link

http://realthai.blogspot.com/2006_06_01_archive.html

It is indeed a quite detailed and interesting virtual site visit of that factory and I strongly advise you to check it out.

 

Can you make your own grass jelly at home?

Of course for all those who like to make their own stuff, yes, you can make you own grass jelly!

All you need is to purchase a readily available packet of grass jelly power, which u can pour into some boiling water and allow to rest. (This initial preparation, you can use the measurements for preparing normal jelly.)

After your grass jelly becomes rather ‘blobby’ (you understand what I want to say, do you?), you can proceed with either eating it or add it to some desserts or add a sweet syrup to it and mix (without crushing the jelly completely…) to obtain a nice and refreshing drink.

This article is partly based on wikipedia’s entry about Grass Jelly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass_jelly including some pictures.