Tong Yuen

Today is 'Winter Solstice' festival or 'Dong Zhi' and making and eating Tang Yuan/Tong Yuen in Cantonese, or glutinous rice  balls, which symbolises reunion is customary.  In Chinese culture, by eating Tong Yuan, you welcome in the winter and become 1 year older.  Also families would gather for a sumptous dinner, celebrating the arrival of winter and the lengthening of days.
According to Chinese custom, every year on 'Dong Zhi' people make these Tong Yuen as an offering to Buddha and/or their ancestors.
Traditionally, Tong Yuen are just plain colourful glutinous rice balls but nowadays they are readily available  with peanut, red bean paste and black sesame fillings.  Personally, I still prefer the authentic plain ones.

Glutinous rice flour mixed with water to form a dough, then separated into small portions, add food colouring, ready to be rolled into small balls.

Colourful tong yuen, in syrup made with rock sugar and screwpine leaves.

Happy 'Winter Solstice' .......'Dong Zhi'............

Recipe for Tong Yuen

Ingredients

16 oz glutinous rice flour

Water to mix

Syrup

Rock sugar to taste

A knob of crushed ginger

Screwpine/Pandan leaves

Food colouring of your choice

Preparation

Place the rice flour in a mixing bowl,

gradually add in water to mix.

There's no hard and fast rule of how much

water to add to the flour.

Just add enough water or flour

to make the dough to the right consistency,

pliable and the dough does not stick to the hands.

Knead for a while.

Then separate the dough into small portions

and add food colouring, but leave one portion white.

Pinch off pieces of dough and roll dough

between palms of both hands

to form round, tiny balls.

Boil a pot of water and once boiling,

drop in the rice balls and once they float,

they are cooked.

Meanwhile, get ready a big bowl of boiled water

and scoop up the cooked rice balls

into this big bowl of water.

In another pot, boil rock sugar, crushed ginger and

screwpine leaves to make the syrup.

Sweetness is according to personal preference.

Once the syrup is ready, scoop up the rice balls

into a bowl and ladle in the syrup

Serve hot.