How to eat sugar cane stick

We foraged for exciting Asian ingredients that are readily available in Hong Kong to discover their traditional uses, health benefits and ways to incorporate them into Western home cooking. Here, we find out more about cooking with sugarcane.

Sugarcane – What is it?

Sugarcane is a tall, tropical, perennial grass that grows up to five metres high. The stems, the main bulk of the plant, are the cane stalks that are harvested and processed to make cane sugar and other products.

The flavour

Sugarcane stalks, though woody, release a deliciously sweet, pale, yellowy-green juice.

Where to find it

At wet markets. To see it growing, visit the leisure farms at Fanling in the New Territories. It is also available canned in some countries where you can’t buy it fresh.

Uses

• The original candy, raw sugarcane stalks are chewed on as a sweet snack in many developing countries.
• Throughout Southeast Asia and India, the juice is extracted by running the cane through small mills.
• To make sweeteners: sugar, syrup, (in the US, the cheaper alternative, high fructose corn syrup, is now used instead), molasses and jaggery.
• To make the alcoholic spirit cachaça in Brazil, which is the star ingredient in the national cocktail caipirinha.
• To make rum (often from molasses) in the Caribbean.
• The ethanol made from sugarcane is used both for transportation and as a green alternative to petroleum in the making of plastic.
• The pulp and stalks are used for woven furniture, cardboard and paper products.

 Health benefits

• Sugarcane is a source of iron, B vitamins, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and potassium.
• Nutrient-dense blackstrap molasses, a by-product, treats anaemia by promoting red blood cell production.
• Sugarcane’s antioxidants can prevent and repair damage by free radicals, and may also fight infection and disease.
• Raw sugarcane’s low glycaemic index keeps blood sugar levels more stable than processed sugar would do, making it a better choice for diabetics.

Cook it at home

Here, sugar cane stalks serve as a great presentation skewer for the prawn paste as well as lending a sweet finish to the dish. The delicate flavours of Vietnamese chao tom are a delicious mouthful – prawns, garlic and herbs, all wrapped up in fresh lettuce leaves and dipped in a sweet, salty, sour and spicy sauce.

Vietnamese Prawn Sugarcane Skewers

Servings:  4 to 6

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 3 shallots, minced
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• a pinch of sea salt
• 1 tablespoon palm sugar
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• ½ teaspoon pepper
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 500g medium-sized raw shrimps, peeled, deveined and patted dry
• 2 scallions, chopped
• 4 pieces of long sugar cane or 1 can of sugarcane

Garnish:

•  1 small head butter lettuce
• 1 bunch coriander
• 1 bunch mint

Nuoc cham dipping sauce:

Mix 3 tablespoons lime juice, 2 tablespoons sugar, ½ cup water, 2 tablespoons fish sauce, 1 lightly crushed clove of garlic (remove before serving) and 1 red birdseye chilli.

What is sugarcane good for? This cultivated grass is most often grown on a commercial scale, but you can grow it in your garden too. Enjoy a pretty, decorative grass, a natural screen and privacy border, and the sweet juice and fiber that you can get when you harvest the cane in the fall.

Is Sugarcane Good for You?

Sugar gets a bad rap these days, and certainly there is such a thing as too much sugar. However, if you are interested in more natural, unprocessed sugar to supplement a healthy diet, why not grow your own sugarcane.

The types of sugarcane most useful in home gardens are syrup and chewing canes. Syrup sugarcane can be processed to make syrup, as it doesn’t crystallize easily. Chewing canes have a soft, fibrous center that you can simply peel and eat or enjoy in recipes.

One of the potential health benefits of sugarcane is actually weight management. Researchers are currently studying the possibility that eating sugarcane fiber can help people maintain a healthy weight, lose weight, and reduce the risk of developing diabetes. This may work because fiber tends to offset the detrimental health effects of sugar, including slowing the rise in blood glucose you experience after eating sugar.

Other health benefits of sugarcane include getting more nutrients than you would with processed sugar. Unprocessed sugarcane has plant polyphenols, antioxidants, protein, manganese, iron, calcium, potassium, and B vitamins. Sugarcane may be useful in reducing skin inflammation, lowering cholesterol and blood pressure, and improving bad breath.

How to Use Sugarcane

In order to get sugarcane benefits, you will need to harvest and enjoy the canes from your garden. It isn’t difficult to do; simply cut the cane back at the base and peel away the outer layer. The interior is edible and contains sugar, fiber, and other nutrients.

You can press it to make a sugarcane juice, which you can add to anything, or you can simply chew on the interior of the cane. Chop up the cane into sticks to use for food skewers or drink stirrers and sweeteners. You can even ferment the cane to make rum.

Sugar should always be limited in the diet, but forgoing processed sugar for natural cane from your own garden is a great option.

Can you eat sugar canes raw?

How do you prepare sugar cane for eating?

How do Jamaicans eat sugar cane?