Every year, the Chinese New Year festivities end with the Lantern Festival, during which people gorge on tang yuan (tāng yuán), a dessert similar to mochi. Tang yuan is a classic Asian dessert due to the popularity in many Asian countries.
The comforting feeling of chewing these bite-sized pink and white balls and drinking its warm, sugary soup is the perfect antidote for chilly winter nights. This year, you can make authentic quality tang yuan at home with this recipe.
Ingredients:
2 cups glutinous rice flour
2 tablespoons brown sugar
6 drops red food coloring
3 cups water
Pour 1/3 cup of rice flour and 1/8 cup of purified water into a container. Knead the flour and water together until they form smooth, white dough, roughly the size of a tennis ball. Then rip the dough into four chunks.
On the side, boil 2 1/2 cups of water in a small saucepan. Drop the dough chunks in and cook them while stirring occasionally to prevent the dough from sticking to the pan. The pieces will be fully cooked once they float to the top of the pan.
Take out a large mixing bowl and pour in the remaining bag of rice flour. Scoop the dough chunks from the saucepan and drop them into the mixing bowl. Break the chunks into as many pieces as possible with your hands. At this point, the entire mixture should be extremely sticky. The stickiness is what eventually gives the tang yuan its chewiness.
Now add 1/2 cup of water to the mixing bowl and spend several minutes kneading the entire mixture into one smooth, giant block of dough. You should have soft, marshmallow-like dough, flexible enough to fashion into different shapes. With this dough, you should be able to make 70 small tang yuan.
After the large dough has been made, you can color some of the tang yuan pink. Separate 1/3 of the large dough and add six drops of red food coloring. Knead the dough until the coloring is even throughout.
Cut both the pink and white dough into tiny chunks and roll them between your hands until they are spherical and 1/2 inch in diameter. Make sure you roll the chunks until the cracks and holes in the dough disappear. Lightly coat the balls with rice flour to prevent the rice balls from drying out.
To cook the tang yuan, first boil three cups of water in a pot. Drop the tang yuan and cook with high heat, leaving them uncovered and gently stirring them often. When they float, stir in two tablespoons of brown sugar for flavor. Scoop the tang yuan and sugary soup into small bowls and serve this tasty dessert. 70 tang yuan will feed approximately three people.