Oh, tang yuan, why are you so white?

Hey kiddies, I'm back in the kitchen again finally....after a while off cooking. I must admit, I've gotten a bit rusty. My attempt was to make zi ma tang yuan which basically is a tang yuan with black sesame within it. HOWEVER, after a few failed attempts and a few successful ones, I decided to make only the normal one as it is so so so so so sooooooooooo much easier to make. Trust me, this recipe is DEAD easy.

Firstly, a little history.... (got you! you can just go on wikipedia and search up tang yuan if you want a bit of history). The gist of it is, is that you can get it in many assortment of flavours, colors and fillings (peanut butter, brown or black sesame, red bean.. etc. etc.). In addition, it also comes in different soup bases as well... some people like the ginger syrup and some people prefer just to use pandan (thats me! ginger... ugh)

Anyways, a photo:

how white, pure and precious!

Ingredients:
(tang yuan dough)
225g of glutinous rice flour
3/4 cup of water

(pandan syrup)
3 pandan leaves
5 cups of water
3/4 cups of sugar

(if desired, black sesame paste)
1/4 cup ground sesame seeds
1/4 cup sugar
3tbsp of butter

Steps:
1) Roast the sesame seeds under medium heat till aromatic. Then remove from heat and grind till fine. After this, melt the butter and sugar together with the ground seeds till it is thick in texture then leave aside to cool.
2) Next step, would be to then make the syrup. It can just sit there anyway. This is easy. Just pop everything into a small pot and dissolve the sugar. The longer you leave it, the better the pandan aroma.
3) Mix together the glutinous rice flour and water and knead till it no longer sticks to your hands. Then, roll them into small balls. Do not make them too big as they may taste disgusting. (If following the black sesame recipe, just flatten the dough and put a teaspoon of sesame paste and fold back the skin and then roll to make the ball).
4) It is best if you heat up a pot of water as well till it boils. When the balls are ready, just pop it into the water. Once the tang yuan floats, remove from the water immediately. Cooking it any longer will make it too sticky and not firm.
5) Dump some of the tang yuan in the ready-made HOT syrup. Serve hot and enjoy!

I told you it was easy! (Except the wrapping part)
My way around this was just to use a seperate spoon and spread the black sesame on top of the tang yuan! Best of both worlds! LOVE IT =)

Douglas out!