Isn't there a moment back from your childhood that you would like to relive? For me, it's the little glutinous rice balls also known as 'tong yuen' (cantonese), which is traditionally made on the Winter Solstice Festival, which falls on 22nd Dec this year 2010. Luckily, I can get to relive it every year.
Rolling it was laborious, neck-stiffening, feeding-the-mosquitoes under the table while hands are mucky and powdery to kill them, and cleanups were a chore too many... Getting my hands dirty rolling the cute little rice balls is one thing, seeing the little handmade balls of multitude colors laid out on the muslin cloth is all time satisfying.
Many variations of tong yuen are found all over, from those with peanuts, black sesame, red bean fillings, to those of various sizes from pea size to ping pong ball sizes, soft to chewy... Colors add to the appeal with blue, orange, blue, and even modern-inauspicious black, with various soups like soya bean, chicken and pork soup, longan soup, ginger soup, tea-based, and the longer I go on, the weirder the list gets... Regardless of all those, my family has made it simple with plain tong yuen without fillings and made with natural food colorings.
The process is pretty simple.. get some glutinous rice flour add colorings and appropriate amount of water to it until it forms a dough wet enough to be handled.Small amounts of dough were pinched off and rolled on the palm of hand to form the balls of the size of preferance.
Picture on the left is the product of the colorings from red beet juice(left) and dragon fruit pulp (right). To me, I prefer the one made with the dragon fruit pulp as it's more vibrant, and later proved to me right as it retained it's color rather than the red beet.
The yellow from a VERY VERY careful gradual pinches of tumeric powder.... so as to achieve the desired color but not to introduce the heavy earthly smell of it.
The blue from a local flower called 'bunga telang' or Blue Pea Flower (Clitoria Flower), easily grown in the warm climate of Malaysia. Commonly used for some 'nyonya kuih' colorings too. Easily dried and stored, and when added with a little of water, gives off a vibrant blue food coloring.
The 'pandan' leaves, contributes to the green color and again, easily found in Malaysia as it's a local favorite for many other recipes for it's uniquely fragrant sweet aroma. For that reason, mum has decided to make this color the most as to leverage it's unique flavor into the sweet dessert.And after about a couple hours of rolling..... voila... left to dry on a muslin cloth overnight to produce a chewy texture
Being cheeky as I am... I tried to be inventive and mixed up some colors. A little too tedious to do so, and time consuming, so didn't do many.
And the next morning, after an overnight of drying, the balls go into boiling hot water, and left until it floats up to the surface, which shows it's cooked. Quickly taken out and washed with cold water to stop the cooking process and also preserve the color.
The soup was prepared separately with pandan, water and sugar... Simple syrup and sweetness level can be adjusted depending on individual taste.
When ready to serve, just add both up to the bowl.
Just a close up on the cooked balls....
And the final product.... yummm.....
