Today is the 15th day at the first month of the Lunar Calendar, which is the end of the Spring Festival celebration. At this day, people will make glutinous rice ball to celebrate it, which also called Yuanxiao Festival or Lantern Festival. Yuan in Chinese "圆“, in English "circle", meaning happy ending and family reunion. Well, as you can see, the shape of Yuanxiao is a ball, which also match the meaning of "Yuan". Since the glutinous rice ball is sweet, we usually eat it as desert. We eat Yuanxiao or Tangyuan not only for the Yuanxiao Festival, but also for Dongzhi, the Winter Solstice Festival. You might be curious why I put two pictures here. It is not because of the different flavors, while actually they are two different types of rice ball. In the South of China, they call it Tangyuan, and in the North of China they call it Yuanxiao. Yuanxiao and Tangyuan look and taste very similar, even I cannot distinguish them well. But they do have differences, the biggest difference is the way they been made. Let's see what are the two different ways to make it. Basically Yuanxiao or Tangyuan is made from glutinous rice flour mixed with water so that can be formed as ball, usually it has fillings, commonly with black sesame or red beans. Then cooked in boiled water, and eat with the soup. Tangyuan—--the wrapped ball The way of making Tangyuan is similar to dumplings, wrapping fillings with flour wrappers, but the wrapper for Tangyuan is much more thicker than dumpling's wrapper. Mix the glutinous flour with water and make wrappers. Then put fillings at the center of the wrapper and roll it into a ball with both hands. Lastly just cook them in boiled water until them floating on the water. Yuanxiao—--the rolling ball The point of making Yuanxiao is to roll the filling, which is formed as a ball, in glutinous flour, so that the filling ball can be coated with flour. Then take out the balls and steep them into water for seconds. After this you need to put them back into the flour and roll them again. Take out and steep into water...Roll..., repeat the two steps at least 3 times. If you want thicker wrapper, you can repeat few more times. Then at the last time you did rolling, you finished making process, you just need to put the rice balls into boiled water until them floating on the water. Due to the different making ways, Tangyuan tastes much more soft and has more fluent fillings. But they both delicious. We also have different flavor for the wrapper. You can choose carrots, spinach, sweet potato, or many other ingredients. For example, press vegetables into juice then add into the flour, so that you can have colorful wrappers. Thank you for your time! Hope you like this traditional festival desert!
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AuthorYuqing Shen Archives
April 2017
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