For Lunar New Year this year, try making your own tangyuan at home instead of getting store-bought ones. Tangyuan are sweet rice balls known for their soft and chewy texture. It is a dish mainly served on the last day of Chinese New Year, the Lantern Festival. According to the website China Highlights, the Lantern Festival falls on Friday, Feb. 26 this year. Making tangyuan with your family is a good bonding experience, which is fitting since the dish itself symbolizes family togetherness. Here is a simple tangyuan recipe that requires very little cooking experience:
Ingredients:
- 1 cup of glutinous rice flour
- ½ cup of water
- 4 cups of water with 1 tablespoon of olive oil in it
Directions:
1. Add your flour into a large bowl.
2. Slowly pour your ½ cup of water into the flour while mixing the two together, you should get a very sticky dough.
3. Knead your dough till it is soft and no longer sticky. The texture at this point should be close to soft clay.
4. Take out two large plates or nonstick baking mats.
5. Take a large piece of dough and roll it into a long, cylindrical shape.
6. Using a butter knife, cut your line of dough into equal-sized pieces.
7. Roll each piece into a sphere about ¾ of an inch in diameter. If you make your spheres too large, they will take longer to cook and may end up raw inside. Feel free to adjust your cut dough pieces after seeing how large of a sphere they make. A good technique is to cut around 2 equal-sized pieces, and roll 1 into a sphere. If that sphere is a good size, use the remaining unrolled piece as a reference for how large you should cut your dough.
8. Repeat steps 5-7 till you have used up all your dough. When you see you are close to finishing, put four cups of water and one tablespoon of olive oil in a pot, and bring it to a boil.
9. Put your finished spheres into the boiling water and olive oil. The spheres should drop to the bottom of your pot. The dough should cook quickly, taking about 2 minutes. You will know when the dough is done when the pieces float to the top.
10. Once all the tangyuan have floated to the surface, drain the water and put your tangyuan into a serving bowl. They are now ready to eat. Feel free to add other ingredients or a soup base with your tangyuan. I added cabbage, shredded pork, and mushrooms to my tangyuan. You can eat the tangyuan by itself, but it is a bit bland. Enjoy!
