How To Make Glutinous Rice Ball (Tang Yuan)

Ingredients:
2 cups glutinous flour half cup water
1 to 2 drops of RED artificial colouring
500 ml water
250 gram sugar melaka
1 bunch pandan leaves

~ Mixed flour with water in a mixing bowl, knead till it is a soft dough.
~ Separate the dough into 2 portions.
~ Add colouring to one portion mixed well till dough becomes red.
~ With each dough, shaped into small balls and set aside.
~ Meanwhile, in a pot, boil the water.
~ Add pandan leaves and gula melaka and boil till sugar melts, and syrup is boiling.
~ Slowly add balls into syrup.
~ When balls rise to the top, its cooked.

Note: Gula melaka is more fragrant than regular sugar but less sweet than regular sugar. It will make the syrup turn dark brown (as picture). And discoloured the glutinous balls.
So if you want to use gula melaka, you may need to cook the balls in a separate pot of hot water..when its cooked, sieve out the balls and add into the syrup pot.

The above recipe is a traditional tang yuan recipe. Nowadays, you can try different flavours of tang yuan soup such as peanuts, black sesame, etc with different tang yuan filling such as sesame, peanut, red bean, yam and much more. In the past people eat tang yuan during special festive days, now you can find tang yuan as dessert everywhere.

Check out why people eat tang yuan on New Year Eve & on the 15th of 1st lunar month.