Tangyuan(rice glue ball)
By admin on 2015-02-03

The Festival of Lanterns is the most important festival celebrated after the Chinese New Year, at that time, people can put up lanterns, have to eat a Chinese dessert called Tangyuan which is beautifully tasty and very much loved by the people.
The Spring Festival is the most important festival in China. People eat different food. The rice glue balls, which are eaten on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, or the Lantern Festival, are the last items for the spring festival. On the lantern festival, it is said that every household eats glutinous rice dumplings. People in the north and south call it differently and make it in different ways.

In north, people make it by roll. The fillings are made with grounded sesame, peanuts or bean paste, mixed with sugar. The fillings are then dipped with water and rolled in the glutinous rice flour until it is big enough. Most people are busy now. So they normally buy it instead of making it themselves. Street hawkers make it. But the rice glue balls sold by some famous long-standing stores, are warmly welcome.

Comparatively, people in the south would like to make it by themselves. They first mix glutinous rice flour with water. Then they make the fillings with grounded chestnut, peanut, sesame, jujube paste or bean paste. Then they start to make it. In south China, the rice glue balls made by Ningbo in east China and the Lai Tang Yuan made in Chengdu in southwest, are very famous.

The rice glue balls, cooked by boiling, tastes sweet and soft. People who like sweetness would find it delicious. People eat glutinous rice dumplings as a wish for reunion.

Ingredients:

Dough:
Glutinous rice powder
Water

Filling:
Black sesame seeds
Sugar
Shortening

Methods:

1. Baked black sesame seeds then crushed.Put them in the shortening and sugar them mix until good combined.(this is filling)

.Pour the water into the glutinous rice powder. Mix to form a dough

3.Knead dough until smooth and Non-stick hand.

4. Divide the dough into 25 portions, each about 20 grams. Divide the filling into 25 portions.
5. Flatten each piece of dough and place a portion of filling in middle and gather edges of skin to enclose filling. Pinch to seal. Roll each filled skin into a ball.

6.Heat up with boiling water in the pot and cook rice ball for 5 minutes until all float on water,dish off.

Attention:
Black sesame seeds:shortening:sugar 2:1:2
Dough should be required to not soft and stiff.The moderate level is perfect.