Tang Yuan

Winter Solstice occurs between 21st to 23rd December in the Northern Hemisphere when one of the earth's poles reaches its maximum tilt away from the Sun. The longest night and shortest day are experienced here. At the same time the opposite happens in the Southern Hemisphere which is experiencing Summer Solstice with longest day and shortest night.

In Chinese, "dong" means winter and "zhi" means arrival. So dongzhi means arrival of winter. The winter solstice traditions were created to celebrate the "birth of the sun" and is marked by rituals like eating winter solstice foods, for example, the glutinous rice balls or tang yuan.

Generally, the tang yuan are cooked in syrup. However, there are some people who cook them in savoury soup with pork balls or sliced pork and vegetables. Tang yuan comes in different sizes but for ease of eating, I usually make them with about 1 cm diameter or 5 gm each small ball. They also come in different colours; for health reason, nowadays natural ingredients are used to colour them, for example, blue pea flowers for blue tang yuan, pandan leaves for green, orange sweet potatoes for orange, purple sweet potatoes for purple, beetroot for red, pumpkin for yellow, carrots for orange, red dragon fruit for red and so on. Some tang yuan are filled with crushed peanuts or red or black bean paste to name a few.

I have experimented to come up with tang yuan which are of a good texture, neither too softy nor too hard. And I willl be using these measurements to ensure this texture in future years to come. I usually make 5-6 different colours of tang yuan.

Ingredients:

• White tang yuan:
• 75 g glutinous rice flour
• 60 g water

• Green tang yuan
• 75 g glutinous rice flour
• 8 - 10 pandan leaves grind with 70 g water to obtain 60 g pandan juice

• Orange tang yuan
• 75 g glutinous rice flour
• 55 g orange sweet potato
• 40g water

• Red tang yuan
• 75 g glutinous rice flour
• 60 g dragon fruit
• 5 g water (little water is used as the dragon fruit is very juicy)

• Purple tang yuan
• 75 g glutinous rice flour
• 100 g purple sweet potato
• 35 g water

• Blue tang yuan:
• 75 g glutinous rice flour
• 10 fresh blue pea flowers
• 60 g water

• 1.5 litre of water
• 150 g sugar (or less or more depending on the level of sweetness you desire)
• 4-5 pandan leaves

Method:

Step 1: Preparing the dough

• For white tang yuan:
• Add glutinous rice to a bowl.
• Add water to the bowl.
• Mix and knead them till a smooth dough is formed.
• Weigh them into 5 g dough.
• Roll them into balls.
• Arrange them on a tray and cover them to prevent them from hardening.

• For green colour tang yuan
• Add glutinous rice flour and pandan juice to a bowl.
• Mix and knead them till a smooth dough is formed.
• Weigh them into 5 g dough.
• Roll them into balls.
• Arrange them on a tray and cover them to prevent them from hardening.

• For orange colour tang yuan
• Steam orange sweet potato till soft.
• Add them to the glutinous rice flour while they are hot.
• Add water.
• Mix and knead them till a smooth dough is formed.
• Weigh them into 5 g dough.
• Roll them into balls.
• Arrange them on a tray and cover them to prevent them from hardening. 

• For red colour tang yuan:
• Skin and mash the dragon fruit.
• Add them to the glutinous rice flour.
• Add water.
• Mix and knead them till a smooth dough is formed.
• Weigh them into 5 g dough.
• Roll them into balls.
• Arrange them on a tray and cover them to prevent them from hardening.

• For purple colour tang yuan:
• Steam purple sweet potato till soft.
• Add them to the glutinous rice flour while they are hot.
• Add water.
• Mix and knead them till a smooth dough is formed.
• Weigh them into 5 g dough.
• Roll them into balls.
• Arrange them on a tray and cover them to prevent them from hardening. 

• For blue tang yuan:
• Steep or soak the blue pea (take only the petals) in hot water for half an hour.
• Sieve the soaked flowers to obtain the blue water.
•  Add the glutinous rice to a bowl.
• Add the blue water to the bowl.
• Mix and knead them till a smooth dough is formed.
• Weigh them into 5 g dough.
• Roll them into balls.
• Arrange them on a tray and cover them to prevent them from hardening.

Step 2: Making the syrup.

• Boil a pot of water.
• Add the pandan leaves and sugar to the pot.
• Stir to ensure that the sugar is dissolved.
• Turn off the fire and remove the pandan leaves.
• Let the syrup cool down completely.

Step 3

• Prepare a pot of cold boiled water.

Step 4: Boiling the dough

• Boil a pot of water.
• When the water is boiling add the white tang yuan to them.
• When the tang yuan is cooked (they float in the water when cooked), scoop them up into a pot of cold boiled water.
• Transfer the tang yuan to the pot of syrup.
• Do not stir the tang yuan.

Step 5: Repeat steps 3 and 4 till all the dough balls have been cooked. Always change the water in Step 4 when you are cooking a different colour dough to ensure that there is no contamination of the various colours.

Step 6: Leave the pot of tang yuan on your counter top till the next day. (I always make my tang yuan on the eve of the Winter Solstice Festival.

Butter and Cheese Bread Rolls

 

 

Many people love Cinnamon Rolls. However, for a change you can replace the cinnamon powder with butter and cheese of your choice and there you have Butter and Cheese Bread Rolls which are equally yummy. The method of making the latter involves folding the dough before it is rolled up. This is to create more layers in the dough thereby making it even softer.

Ingredients:

• 205 g warm milk
• 205 g warm water
• 50 g sugar
• 10 g yeast
• 100 g corn oil
• 1 egg white
• 650 g bread flour
• 10 g salt
• 40 g melted butter
• 100 g Cheddar cheese

Instructions:

• Activate the yeast:
• Add warm milk and warm water to the bowl of a mixer.
• Add the sugar and yeast to the bowl.
• Stir and wait for 5-10 minutes for bubbles to be formed.

• Once the yeast has been activated, add corn oil and egg white to the yeast mixture.

• Then add the bread flour and salt to it.

• Knead till window pane is achieved.

• Rest the dough till it doubles in size.

• Punch down the dough to de-gas.

• Flour your counter top.

• Transfer the dough onto it and shape it into a ball.

• Roll out the dough to a rectangle, 20 inches x 12 inches. (If you do not have a big counter space, you may divide the dough into 2.

• Spread melted butter onto it.

• Fold one third (bottom) of the dough (long side) to the centre third.

• Spread melted butter onto the folded side.

• Fold the other third (top) onto the centre third.

• Spread melted butter onto the folded side.

• Now you would have a long rectangle.

• Fold a third (right) of the dough onto the centre third.

• Spread melted butter onto the folded side.

• Fold the other third (left) onto the centre third.

• Now you would have a somewhat square dough.

• Rest the dough for 10 minutes.

• Roll the square dough into a rectangle, 20 inches x 12 inches.

• Brush butter onto the rectangle.

• Sprinkle shredded cheese onto it.

• Swiss roll up the dough along the long side.

• Slice the dough into the number of pieces you want.

• Place them onto a baking pan which is lined with greased parchment paper.

• Let it proof till double in size.

• Egg wash (using the egg yolk which is added with some water).

• Bake the slices in a pre-heated oven at 175 deg C for 25 minutes.

• Remove them from the baking pan and let them cool on a metal rack.

• They can be eaten on their own or spread with jam.

Sambal Dried Prawns Buns

Sometimes it is good to give our family a change. Most of the time I bake sweet buns for breakfast. However, once in a while I like to make some savoury ones. Sambal Hae Bee buns is one of those savoury buns that I baked recently. I broke the process into two, making the sambal hae bee one day earlier.    

Ingredient:

• 250 ml warm milk
• 45 g sugar
• 6 g yeast
• 1 egg
• 6 g salt
• 500 g bread flour
• 80 g butter
• Egg wash - 1 egg + 1 tbsp milk

• Filling - Refer to Sambal Hae Bee recipe in this blog.

Instructions:

• Activate the yeast:

• Add warm milk to a bowl (retain 50 mil for later use)
• Add sugar to the bowl.
• Add instant yeast to the bowl.
• Stir and wait for 5-10 minutes for bubbles to be formed.

• Add yeast mixture, egg, salt and bread flour to the bowl.

• Knead till a dough ball is formed. (Add the retained milk if your dough is too dry.)

• Add butter to the dough ball.

• Continue to knead till window pane is achieved.

• Grease a clean bowl and transfer the dough to it. Cover the bowl with a cling wrap.

• Once the dough has doubled in size, transfer it to your counter top.

• Punch down the dough to degas.

• Form the dough into a ball.

• Divide your dough ball into smaller dough balls. (My small dough ball weighs 37 g each.)

• Roll each dough ball flat and put a tsp (or more if you prefer) of sambal hae bee in the centre. Pinch the edge of the circle to cover the sambal. Roll the dough into a small dough and place it into a cup cake liner. Place the latter into the muffin tray. Repeat till all the dough balls have been filled with the sambal.

• Cover them and let them rise till double in size.

• Meanwhile pre-heat your oven to 175 deg C.

• Once the dough balls have double in size, egg wash them.

• Bake them for 18-20 minutes. (Tent your pan with aluminium foil if your oven is too hot and the top of the buns are turning dark too soon.)

• When baked, remove the buns from the muffin tray and transfer them to a metal rack to let them cool down.

    Alternatively,

• Roll the dough into a rectangle, 12 inches by 10 inches.

• Spread the sambal hae bee onto it.

• Swiss roll it up the long edge.

• Place it onto a baking tray.

• Cover and let it proof.

• Once it has risen to twice the size, egg wash it.

• Bake it for 30 - 35 minutes.

• Once done, let it cook down on a metal rack before slicing it up.

• Enjoy.