How time flies and we will be ushering 2012 in about 2 weeks.
December has always been my favorite month with so many festivals & holidays like Winter Solstice [Dong Zhi (冬至)], Christmas and New Year 2012. Winter Solstice has always been a very important event in the Chinese custom which means the arrival of winter. It signifies the longest night in the year. Winter Solstice is a very important day in the Chinese calender and some people celebrate it on a bigger scale than Chinese New Year. On this day, the Chinese will make Tang Yuan (汤圆) to signifies the arrival of winter and by eating this we will be a year older. In Chinese custom, this round shaped rice ball symbolizes togetherness and completeness of the family. This year will be celebrated on 22 December…. (ps: My wedding Anniversary)
Tang Yuan is also known as glutinous rice balls. This dessert is made during the Winter Solstice festival and it comes in different colours like white, pink, green, yellow, blue and orange. This little rices balls are then served with syrup but these days people are getting more creative and Tang Yuan comes with different types of filling like peanut, black sesame, red bean etc. There are savoury ones as well. However, the traditional ones are still my favourite. For busy mums like us, I usually buy from NTUC or Cold Storage, their house-brands.
Tang Yuan Recipe
Ingredients:
Syrup
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1.5 cups water
- 2-3 pandan leaves/screwpine leaves
- 2 cups glutinous rice (sticky rice) flour
- 1 Tbsp fine sugar
- 7 oz water
- food coloring ( 2-3 different colors )
- To prepare syrup, boil water in a pot. Add the screwpine pleaves and let it boil on medium fire for 5 minutes.
- Add *rock sugar/sugar and let it boil for 5 minutes.
- Lower fire and let it simmer to another 15 miuntes.
- Sugar can be added to taste if you like. Set aside.
- In a big bowl, mix glutinous flour with sugar.
- Add water and knead to form a paste. Continue to knead until it form a soft dough and no longer sticks to your hands.
- Divide into 3-4 portion and add 2-3 drops of food coloring to the each portion of dough.
- Divide into small balls and lightly shape into balls using both palms.
- Set aside a few hours or overnight as this will make the dough a bit harder and easier to handle. Boil another pot of water, drop the dumplings into the boiling water. As soon as it floats to the transfer it to the syrup water. Serve.
Method: (For Busy Mums's Method)
- To prepare syrup, boil water in a pot. Add the screwpine pleaves and let it boil on medium fire for 5 minutes.
- Add *rock sugar/sugar and let it boil for 5 minutes.
- Lower fire and let it simmer to another 15 miuntes.
- Sugar can be added to taste if you like. Set aside.
- Drop the rice dumplings (glutinous rice balls) into the boiling water. As soon as it floats to the transfer it to the syrup water.
- Serve.
- You can add a few slices ginger to the syrup water if you like.
- Or you can replace the fine sugar with palm sugar or brown sugar or rock sugar using same method.
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| Tang Yuan (汤圆) |
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