冬至 Winter Solstice

Dong Zhi(冬至) falls on this coming Thursday, which is 22nd December 2005. Dong Zhi is called Winter Solstice in English. if you are keen to read up on the Chinese tradition of celebrating Dong Zhi or Winter Solstice Festival, see here. Tang Yuan(汤圆) is the special dessert served for this festival. As I have already said here that Dong Zhi falls on this Thursday, but I cooked Tang Yuan today as I couldn't wait till that day. Hubby might have to go overseas on Wednesday and hopefully be back by Christmas Eve. I just pray hard that things turn up well or there is a change in plans for the next three days, so he doesn't have to make the trip.

Alright, back to the topic of Tang Yuan. My mum has two versions of Tang Yuan. One is less sinful, whereas another one is extremely sinful. She used to serve the less sinful version many years ago until... (can't recall). I can't remember when was the time she came out with this extremely sinful version, which most of us couldn't resist, for Chinese New Year. Making Tang Yuan has always brought back fond memories of the past when my siblings and I helped my mum to roll the glutinous rice balls in the kitchen. It seems like yesterday yet so long ago... *sigh*

My mum's Tang Yuan is special in a way that it can be served at any time as desired without having the glutinous rice balls turning soggy in the soup. The cooked glutinous rice balls are coated with some sugar and set aside, only to combine with the hot soup or hot syrup and cooked beans, when served. She likes to use the type of orange sugar for the whole recipe. The sugar though orange in colour is actually called brown sugar. I chose to cook the extremely sinful version for my family today.



Tang Yuan (Extremely sinful version)

Serves 4 - 5

Ingredients for glutinous rice balls:
250g glutinous rice flour
water
15-20g brown sugar
food colouring (usually pink)


Method:

Add sufficient water to flour and knead into dough.

Divide dough into 2 parts. Add food colouring to one part. Knead each dough well.

Make balls from the dough.

Bring water to boil in a big pot and drop in dough balls to cook. When cooked, balls rise to the surface.

Drain balls and put in a big bowl. Add about 15-20g of sugar to mix with the balls. Set aside.


Ingredients for syrup:
300ml water
4-5 pandan leaves, washed and tied into a knot
2-inch knob ginger, crushed (more if desired to give a strong ginger taste)
abt 100g brown sugar


Method for syrup:

Bring water to boil in a pot with the pandan leaves and ginger.

Add sugar and cook till sugar dissolves.

Discard pandan leaves and ginger.



Ingredients for the beans:

Brown sugar (tho' orange in colour):


Brown beans:


Dried mandarin orange skin (Chen pi):


Ingredients for beans - the lighter colour type (Chia Dao in Hokkien) :
200g brown beans
600ml hot water
100g brown sugar
some dried mandarin orange skin (chen pi)


Method for cooking beans:

Simmer in the slow cooker for 2-3 hours. Add sugar when beans are cooked. Keep warm until served. The brown beans won’t break into bits when cooked, that's the reason for choosing it instead of the normal red beans. Brown beans look like red beans but lighter in colour.


To serve:

Put cooked glutinous rice balls into individual bowls. Add cooked beans and hot syrup as desired. As this is extremely sweet, we only eat the chewy glutinous rice balls and the cooked beans. The strong ginger taste in the syrup makes this special.

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For the less sinful version, the ingredients and method for cooking the glutinous rice balls are the same as above. The difference is the soup used instead of the syrup and cooked beans.

Ingredients for soup:
abt 600ml water
4 –5 pandan leaves, washed and tied into a knot
2-inch knob ginger, crushed
sugar to taste (preferably brown sugar)


Method for soup:

Bring water to boil in a pot with the pandan leaves and ginger.

Add sugar to taste and cook till sugar dissolves.

Discard pandan leaves and ginger.


To serve:

Put cooked glutinous rice balls into individual bowls. Pour hot soup and serve.

Note from Tazz as at 22nd January 2006: I have finally found the actual name for the orange sugar and beans. They are called brown sugar and brown beans respectively.