Chinese community celebrates Winter Solstice with tangyuan

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MANY Chinese celebrate the Winter Solstice Festival (or Dong Zhi in Mandarin) today.

Traditionally, it is a time for family reunion. For some, the Winter Solstice Festival is more important than the Lunar New Year.

Tangyuan (glutinous rice balls) is synonymous with this festival and the making and eating of it symbolises reunion.

There are many types of tangyuan, some filled with red bean paste, peanut paste or sesame paste.

It could be served in sweet syrup or ginger syrup.

Preparation: The ingredients are pandan leaves, sweet potato, purple potato, crushed ginger, pandan juice. Those who prefer something other than plain tangyuan can use red bean paste for fillings.

With the trend of consuming less chemicals and processed foods, StarMetro is sharing a recipe for naturally-coloured glutinous rice balls.

I used purple sweet potatoes to get purple-coloured glutinous rice balls, sweet potato for orange-coloured ones, and pandan leaves for green. I cheated by using red food colouring with the red ones as I could not find red dragon fruit in time.

Note: It is said that eating tangyuan is to welcome the new year and get older by a year (per tangyuan), but do not let that deter you from enjoying those chewy rice balls.

Ingredients (the measurements can be tweaked as my mother follows the agak-agak policy):

Colourful: Once the tangyuan floats to the suface, transfer it to ice water to get a chewy texture.

A) Glutinous rice balls

150g purple potato

150g pandan leaves

150g sweet potato

200g glutinous rice flour

B) Ginger syrup:

1.8 litre water

300g sugar

Crushed old ginger

Three knotted pandan leaves

1. Blend the purple potato, sweet potato and pandan (screwpine) leaves individually.

2. Use approximately 150g of each and incorporate it with 200g of glutinous rice flour, add one bowl of water.

3. Knead it to form a soft dough.

4. Next, roll it into small balls.

5. Boil a pot of water.

6. Put the glutinous rice balls into the boiling water.

7. Once the rice balls are cooked, they will float to the surface.

8. Place them in a bowl of ice water to get a chewy texture before transferring the rice balls into the ginger syrup.

9. Alternatively, just pop them into the syrup.

10. Enjoy the dish.