Tang Yuan or Tangyuan are delicious rice flour balls with a surprise filling of black sesame inside. These sticky and addictively chewy sesame balls with wonderful delicious black sesame filling and served in a light ginger syrup. If you love boba balls then you will love these sesame balls too!
Tangyuan have been eaten since the Sung Dynasty in China and are popularly eaten at Chinese New Year and during the Lantern Festival as the round shape and the pronunciation of tangyuan symbolize being together with your loved ones or family. They can either be filled with black sesame or red beans or other fillings or they can be unfilled and they can either be small or large. Although these glutinous rice dumplings are enjoyed in both the North and South of China, this is the Southern version. In the South there's also a version served in a savoury soup although this is the dessert version with a ginger syrup.
If I thought that I loved Tangyuan a lot then Mr NQN is an absolute freak for them (we joke that he is really very Chinese underneath his Caucasian exterior). I made a few batches of these trying to get to the right ratio and he eagerly gobbled up every batch sometimes downing 20 balls after dinner. The first lot was too brightly coloured and had way too much filling. You see they're best when the filling to dough ratio is juuust right. You don't want too much filling because you don't get that lovely chewiness and conversely you want enough filling to give it flavour. I'm happy to tell you that I think these tangyuan have the perfect filling to dough ratio and size - I prefer them smaller because they're easier to eat that way.
9 Tips for making Tangyuan sesame balls!
1 - I'd recommend making these black sesame balls small. They expand when cooked and you don't want huge balls in your mouth. Or perhaps you do! No judgement!
2 - I don't recommend adding salt to the filling. I made many batches of these to arrive at this recipe and adding this amount of sugar and no salt produces the most delicious result.
3 - Glutinous rice flour is different from rice flour as it has a stretchy (aka glutinous) texture to it once cooked and is what makes these tangyuan so addictively chewy. You can buy it from Asian grocery stores.
4 - You can buy already ground sesame seeds from Asian grocery stores if you don't have a spice grinder or mortar and pestle.
5 - Glutinous rice flour is different from wheat flour which you may more used to working with. You're looking for the dough to have a specific consistency so use the water quantity as a guide. First you add boiling water then room temperature water. You can add all of the boiling water but once you get to the room temperature water go slowly.
6 - If this is your first time making tangyuan I'd recommend making plain white ones. I found the blue dough a bit harder to deal with with more breakages and the only difference was the food colouring.
7 - When using colour, use it sparingly-just add a drop to the room temperature water. The resulting colour is much, much more vibrant and darker than it looks in the uncooked balls and it can be quite alarmingly so!
8 - To freeze these, place sweet rice balls on a tray in the freezer and once completely frozen you can bag these up together and boil them from frozen (same process, wait for them to rise to the surface and then boil for another minute).
9 - Cooked tangyuan can be refrigerated and then microwaved (although freshly cooked is best). I usually heat up around 8 balls in the syrup for 1 minute on full power.
These are such a wonderful dessert and easily made vegan just by using a vegan butter. I was actually going to serve these to my in laws when they came over. They were our first guests on the weekend. It was Mr NQN's mother Tuulikki's birthday and we usually try to organise a picnic but since the weather has turned temperamental we invited everyone here.
His other sister Amaya and her family couldn't come because they had colds and Mr NQN's brother Manu is unvaxxed so they stayed at home on the Central Coast just to keep everyone healthy. "This must be Lorraine's house," said Mr NQN's older sister Araluen seeing the faux plants in the plant box by the door. Everyone brought a plate along and it was an all-vegan spread.
Amaya usually buys the present and everyone contributes money. It's always a fruit platter (the official Elliott birthday gift for birth Elliotts - I'm not included thankfully) but since she wasn't coming I bought the fruit. Mr NQN drew her a birthday card as she loves hand drawn and home made things. It was a fairly artistic effort and by that I mean it was stick figures but we all kind of knew who we were in the picture. However it was halfway through lunch when we had finished eating that I realised that nobody had brought her an Elliott birthday cake as it is usually made by either Tuulikki or Amaya.
The official Elliott birthday cake is this raw, vegan cake and it's an easy to put together. "Should I make one now?" I said to Araluen slightly panicked. It doesn't take long to make but everyone was sitting in the lounge room which is next to the kitchen and I was worried Tuulikki would notice although deep down I knew that she probably wouldn't. She really lives on another plane and I mean that in a nice way.
To make the raw cake you basically pop everything in a food processor and blend it up and then place it in a mold overnight. I put it all in my Thermomix and blended it but I tried to do it on low speed so it wouldn't make too much noise. I scooped it into a lined bowl and stuck it in the freezer. Then after 30 minutes I unmolded it and served it up while Tuulikki was taking a tour of the upstairs of the house.
Everyone was waiting for Tuulikki to come down including Amaya and her family that were dialed in on the phone and we were waiting to sing Happy Birthday. But in Tuulikki fashion she took her time wandering from room to room talking about the sunshine, stained glass windows and the garden outside and meandering through. Finally she came into the living room where she was greeted with Happy Birthday from everyone else. She also seemed very happy and surprised at her cake and didn't have any idea that that was what I was doing while I was gone. Unfortunately we didn't have time to eat the tangyuan but Mr NQN was happy about that. That meant more tangyuan for him!
So tell me Dear Reader, do you have any official family gifts, cakes or traditions? Do you like tangyuan?
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