Tang Yuan - Tong Yuen - glutinous balls - 元宵 - 湯圓

Tang yuan (mandarin), tong yuen(cantonese), glutinous balls is a common snack during chinese new year, dongzhi( 21st or 22nd december) or even during lantern festival. It is symbolic family reunion. Tang yuan can be filled with peanuts, black sesame or any filling. It can be coated with some peanut powder or soy bean powder instead or sweet soup. In northern china, tang yuan might filled by minced meat and served with some chicken stock. Tang yuan is also known as yuan xiao, but yuan xiao sound identical likes 'remove yuan', so peoples change the name to tang yuan which sound fimiliar 'reunion'. Funny enough, taiwanese served it with some ferment glutinous rice. Japanese and korean eat it too, just in different taste and form.

Source: xiaoxiaomitong, myself

Ingredients:
100g glutinous flour
50g peanut powder
50g sugar
some oil

(B) sweet soup
1.2 liter water
4 pandan leaves
suagr to taste
Methods:

1. Cook sweet soup for about half hour or till fragnant.
2. Mix peanut powder with sugar and some oil and roll it into 22 small balls. Set aside.
3. Mix glutinous rice flour with warm water to make a soft dough.
4. Boil water till roaring boil, drop 20g of dough, cook it and let it float 1 minute, and dish up and drain.
5. Combined the cooked dough with the rest of dough and knead till smooth, divide into 22 pieces.
6. Wrap filling and cook till cooked.
7. Served with sweet soup.

Notes:

1. I cooked some dough and kned it with the rest of dough is to get a soft, chewy and bouncy tang yuan.
2. In stead of peanut powder, you can replace it with some toasted black sesame poweder. Or without filling.