VF Recipe: Feilong: Desserts: Tang Yuan
The Lantern Festival is a Chinese festival celebrated on the 15th day of the first month in the Lunar Year in the Chinese calendar. In the year 2010 it is February 28, so... it’s this Sunday!
According to the Chinese tradition, at the very beginning of a new year, when there is a bright full moon hanging in the sky, there should be thousands of colorful lanterns hung out for people to appreciate. The Lantern Festival is also known as the Little New Year since officially it ends the Chinese New Year celebrations. At this time, people will try to solve the puzzles on the lanterns and get all their families united in the joyful atmosphere. Besides entertainment the beautiful lanterns, another important part of the Lantern Festival is eating small dumpling balls made of glutinous rice flour - Tang Yuan 汤圆 (Tong Yuen in Cantonese). There’s this saying that everyone should at least eat one tang yuan per year as an indication that a year had passed and you’re older and wiser by a year.
Just try to imagine how that day passes in the Dragon’s High Loft. Tao is joyfully making colorful rice balls in the kitchen, Baishe members are celebrating “family reunion dinner” together with honoured Laoban. Thoughtful Fei Long, sitting at the head of the table and dreaming to spent this day with someone precious person next time… Akihito?.. Asami?.. Sighing secretly…
Tāng yuán is a traditional Chinese desert. Glutinous rice flour is mixed with a small amount of water, added food colouring and rolled into small balls. Then cooked and served in syrup made with rock sugar and screwpine leaves. Tang yuan can be either small or large, and filled or unfilled. The fillings inside the dumplings can be either sweet or salty. Sweet fillings are made of sugar, walnuts, sesame, osmanthus flowers, rose petals, sweetened tangerine peel, bean paste, or jujube paste. The salty variety is filled with minced meat, vegetables or a mixture. A single ingredient or any combination can be used as the filling.
I want to introduce a sweet tang yuan filled with black sesame paste. They are absolutely decadent, with intensely flavorful, sinful rich, and aromatic black sesame filling oozing out of the dumplings, what impart very subtle and delicate fragrances into the ginger syrup and smell wonderful!
Chinese Recipe: Black Sesame Dumplings
Ingredients:
8 oz. glutinous rice (sticky rice) flour
180 ml water (3/4 cup water)
1/4 cup black sesame seeds
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 stick unsalted butter (1/4 cup or 4 tablespoons)
Ginger Syrup:
5 cups water (reduced to 4 cups after boiling)
1 cup sugar
4 oz. old ginger (skin peeled and then lightly pounded with the flat side of a cleaver)
1/2 teaspoon sweet osmanthus (optional)
2 screwpine leaves or pandan leaves (tie them into a knot, optional)
Method:
Lightly toast the black sesame seeds over medium fire until you smell the aroma of the black sesame seeds. Please take note that the sesame seeds will start popping when they are heated, so use your lid to cover. Don’t burn the black sesame seeds; transfer them out and let cool as soon as they smell aromatic.
Use a mini food processor to grind the black sesame seeds until they become fine. Transfer the ground black sesame into a wok, add sugar and butter and stir well to form a thick paste. If they are too dry, add more butter. Dish out and let cool in the fridge. (This will make the filling easier.)
In a big bowl, mix the glutinous rice flour with water until it forms a smooth paste and no longer sticks to your hands. Divide it equally into 16-20 balls (depends how you like the size, the bigger the size, the easier it is to do the filling). Flatten each ball in your palm, and then use a pair of chopsticks to pick up some black sesame paste and lay it in the middle of the flatten ball. Fold the edge to seal the dumpling. Lightly roll it into a ball shape using both palms, very gently and delicately. Set aside.
Prepare the ginger syrup by boiling the water. Add the ginger and screwpine/pandan leaves (optional) into the water and boil for 10-15 minutes with medium heat. Add sugar and sweet osmanthus and boil for another 5 minutes. Lower heat to simmer and reduce to about 4 cups of water. Add more sugar to taste if you like.
Heat up another pot of boiling water. Drop the dumplings into the hot boiling water. As soon as they float to the top, transfer them out and into the ginger syrup. Turn off heat and serve the black sesame dumplings in a bowl immediately.
Cook’s Notes:
1.Traditionally, black sesame paste is made with-yes, you guess it right-pork lard. Pork lard makes the black sesame paste extra silky, smooth, and richer in flavor. Feel free to use lard as you wish, but I chose butter as a substitute.
2.Don’t be too greedy with the black sesame paste. Use moderate amount for your dumplings or else the dumplings might “burst” when you roll them into balls. They might also “burst” during boiling.
3.You want to boil the dumplings separately so the ginger syrup doesn’t get cloudy. In case some of your black sesame dumplings burst, you will not ruin the ginger syrup.
4.If you wish to have the black sesame dumplings without the ginger syrup, just boil them in the hot boiling water and serve your dumplings with that hot water.
Eat only the dumplings, but not the hot water!
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