Hot Candied Fruit (拔丝 Basi)

This is a well-known Chinese sweet dish, and it can be made with either apple, pear, banana or yam. It is served hot and each piece should be dipped into a bowl of cold water before being put into one's mouth so that the surface is cooled and hardened while the inside remains warm and tasty.

The most important part in preparing this dish is the boiling of the sugar. Sugar is put into a round-bottomed frying pan containing hot water or oil, boiled on a moderate fire and stirred gently with a slice until the sugar melts. The syrup continues to be heated and begins to give out bubbles, which become smaller as the liquid thickens. Continued heating will cause the syrup to turn thin again, and it is at this juncture that the fruit, peeled and cut into pieces, is to be put into the pan, mixed with the syrup by stirring so that each piece is coated.

The coffee around the fruit remains sticky so that when a piece is picked up with chopsticks, flossy sugar is drawn out. To achieve this result, the fire for boiling the sugar should be well controlled, for intense fire will burn the sugar while slow fire will not make the syrup draw.

The serving dish containing the candied fruit must be smeared in advance with a little edible oil to prevent the fruit from sticking onto it