Tang Yuan with Peanut Butter Fillings ( Sweet Glutinous Rice Ball )

Tang Yuen is also eaten during auspicious family celebrations and Winter solstice aka “dong zhi” (冬至), which usually falls on the 21st or 22nd of December. The round and sticky dumpling balls symbolise family closeness and togetherness.  This Tang Yuen I made was in 2011 when my mom visited us in Brunei.  Im being too free and created a few colors for my tang yuen :) i made 6 colors, they were the purple, original white, pink, green, orange and yellow.  I filled my tang yuen with peanut butter.  So yumm.

Ingredients

Rice Balls

- 1 1/2 cup glutinous rice flour

- 1 cup water (add gradually until all form a ball and not sticky )

- food colourings

Fillin - Skippy Peanut Butter

Sweet Soup (糖水)

- Fewginger slices

- 2 litres of water

- Rock sugar / Plum sugar / regular granulated sugar

- 2 pandan (screw pine) leaves, tied in a knot

Method:-

In a large mixing bowl, add flour and water. Gradually add water (you don’t have to use all of it) and knead the dough until soft, smooth, easily kneadable (pictured above) yet not sticky to the fingers (too wet), nor crumbling (too dry). If the dough is too wet, add a bit more flour.

Divide the dough depending on the number of different colours you intend to make (I divided mine to 6 portions). Add food colouring, just one drop to each portion and knead until the colour is well distributed. 

Shape the dough to even-sized balls, press in to a round disc and feel in a tsp of peanut butter, use index fingers to close and round into a round ball.  

Bring a pot of water (enough water to submerge the dumplings completely) to boil. Add the tang yuan into the boiling water and cook until they float to the surface. Transfer them immediately to a bowl of room temperature water to cool down. This prevents the tang yuan from sticking to one another or discolour the soup, especially helpful if you are not serving immediately. Do not over cook this or you will find the tong yuen all breaking apart.

Add ingredients for sweet soup (糖水) in a pot. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to a simmer until the sugar is fully melted. To serve, add cooked tang yuen to a serving bowl and ladle the sweet soup over.'