Xi gua lao is a traditional dish of Beijing cuisine

Beijing cuisine

Beijing cuisine is a cooking style in Beijing, China. It is also known as Mandarin cuisine.-Background:Since Beijing has been the Chinese capital city for centuries, its cuisine has been influenced by culinary traditions from all over China, but the cuisine that has exerted the greatest influence...

.

Preparation

The dish is commonly prepared using these ingredients: watermelon, cherries, agar

Agar

Agar or agar-agar is a gelatinous substance derived from a polysaccharide that accumulates in the cell walls of agarophyte red algae. Throughout history into modern times, agar has been chiefly used as an ingredient in desserts throughout Asia and also as a solid substrate to contain culture medium...

, sugar and vanilla powder. Water is mixed with agar vanilla powder and sugar and boiled into syrup. The cherries are cut into small slices and the watermelon is crushed to get watermelon juice, and mixed with the syrup and then cooled.