Glutinous Rice Balls in Ginger Soup (汤圆糖水)
This dessert is usually serve in Chinese winter festival (冬至) or winter solstice on 22 Dec every year. It is also being served during other Chinese festival to indicate togetherness or reunion (团圆)
The ginger soup here is the same as the sweet potato in ginger soup.
Ingredients (4 to 8 servings)
- 500 grams Glutinous rice flour. (or you get 2-3 packets of the ready made frozen glutinous rice balls from supermarket, and they comes with fillings too)
- 1 section of ginger tuber (about 5-10 cm)
- Sugar to taste (about 8 table spoon and you adjust accordingly)
- 5 bowls water for the soup
- 2 or 3 pandan leaves
- Plain water for making the dough
- A pot of water for boiling the rice balls
- Optional: crush peanuts mixed with sugar (3:1 ratio)
Method
- Wash the ginger, and smash it slightly with a handle of a cleaver or chopping knife or anything hard.
- Put water in the pot and ginger.
- Boil for about 20 – 30 minutes
- Add sugar to taste and stir.
- Add in pandan leaves and boil for another 1-2 minute, and turn off fire.
- If using ready made rice balls, skip this step. Put the flour in a big mixing bowl, slowly add plain water and knead into dough. Put the dough on a cleaned table top, and knead till smooth. Roll it into a long strip and pinch off bit by bit of about a 2 cm or bigger size. For each of these bit, put into the middle of both palm and roll in circular motion to make small ball.
- Boil a pot of plain water. Put in the rice balls and let it continue to boil. They are cooked when they float in the water.
- Scoop them into individual serving bowl, and pour ginger soup into the bowl.
- Serve immediately. (soaking too long will make the soup cloudy and sticky)
- Optional, to prepare a plate of crush peanut mixed with sugar as a dip for the glutinous rice balls (especial for self made that does not have fillings)
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frozen ones aren’t as nice as the handmade ones
I always have problem putting fillings into hand made ones, very often it will leak, end up putting very little filling to prevent leaking. I guess machines are good in doing this. Anyone know technique of doing it by hand?
try to make the ball thicker so that your fillings won’t come out
where can i get glutinous rice?
It depends on where you are located. In Singapore or Malaysia, you get them in supermarkets and provision shops easily. I’m not sure about US or European countries, but head for the China Town will probably give you the best bet.
In the US, you can find glutinous rice flour at Chinatown or any asian markets
hi, i have problems getting the consistency of the dough right, is there a tip for that? thanks 🙂
You have to add water bit by bit and mixing it into the flour until a dough is form. It is best to keep about a cup or half of flour aside. When the dough is form in the mixing bowl, usually its abit too wet and sticky, you put the dough on the table, dust the dough with the remaining flour bit by bit again, and start knealing it on the table, it will smoothen out and not sticky after knealing.