Pennywort Drink

Click to Enlarge	Pennywort Drink Southeast Asia - Rau-Ma Drink (Viet)
	Serves Effort: Sched: DoAhead:	4 ** 15 min Part		A refreshing and tonic cold drink very popular throughout Southeast Asia and gaining adherents worldwide. Caution: the pennywort drink sold in cans in Asian markets has been variously described as "awful", "wretched", "disgusting" and "atrocious" - make it fresh or get it fresh (many Vietnamese restaurants as rau-ma drink) or not at all. It should be served immediately upon making it or it will lose it's bright green color. Some have described the taste as reminding them of wheat grass - I cannot confirm that because I haven't tasted wheat grass since the '60s.

6
3
1/2
ar

oz
c
c

Pennywort (1)
Water
Simple Syrup (2)
Ice

Wash PENNYWORT well and pinch off stems about 1/4 from the bottom.
Make your Simple Syrup and cool it.
Place Pennywort and Water in your blender and run at highest speed for a couple minutes until as fine as its going to get.
Pour through a strainer. Gather up all the fiber in the strainer and squeeze every bit of liquid out of it. Discard fibers.
Put liquid back in the blender with the Simple Syrup and a few ice cubes. Blend at top speed until nice and frothy. Serve immediately over ice.

NOTES:

Pennywort (Rau-Ma): Purists may use only the leaves, but at 4-1/2 ounces of leaf per 1 pound bag of pennywort at U.S. $5.00 / pound, I'm too cheap for that. I include most of the stems which are a little sweeter and have a slightly more resinous flavor than the leaves. For more information see my Pennywort Page.
Simple Syrup is made by heating equal amounts of sugar and water until the sugar is completely dissolved. I prefer palm sugar (by a wide margin) for this drink - 2 oz palm sugar plus 1/4 cup of water.
U.S. measure: t=teaspoon, T=Tablespoon, c=cup, qt=quart, oz=ounce, #=pound, cl=clove in=inch