We always eat Tang Yuen during the winter solstice  - December 22 to be exact.  That’s the date for the Chinese family reunion dinner – similar to Thanksgiving here.  As a child, I remember helping my grandmother roll these balls.  We would of course, make them in all sort of shapes – I remember making a dice, too.

Chewy and sweet, it gives you a satisfying burst of flavor when you bite into one of these glutinous rice balls.  You can serve it with a simple syrup cooked with ginger, or in this recipe below, Shanghainese style with fermented rice wine.  Served this way, it is also supposedly a good galactogogues.  Don’t worry if you don’t know what that means, if you had needed it, then you would already know what it means!

Chef’s tip: Make a batch to freeze.  Place them on a small baking sheet, freeze.  When it is frozen, transfer to a ziplog bag.

½ lb glutinous rice flour
1 Tablespoon powdered sugar
½ cup boiling water
½ cup room temperature water

Red food coloring, optional

½ cup mashed red beans filling, from a can or prepare from scratch

8 cups water

½ cup rock sugar
½ cup dried longans
¼ cup red dates, pitted
2 eggs
1 cup store-bought jiu niang (fermented glutinous rice and wine)

Preparing the dumplings:
1.     Whisk together the rice flour with the powdered sugar.  Form a well in the center. Gradually add the boiling water, stirring to mix.  Slowly add the room temperature water and keep mixing until the dough comes together as a ball and no longer sticks to your hand.
2.     Transfer to a lightly floured board, add food coloring and knead for 2 minutes until dough is soft, smooth and malleable.
3.     Divide the dough into 2 balls. Roll each piece of dough into a ½ inch cylinder.  Cut each cylinder into ¾ inch pieces. Roll each piece into a ball.  Cover dough with a damp tea cloth as you work.
4.     Take a ball and flatten it into a 2 inch round, about 1/8 inch thick with a rolling pin.  Place the wrapper in your palm. Place ½ teaspoon of filling into dough.  Bring the sides together, pinch to seal and roll between your palms to create a smooth ball, making sure filling is totally concealed,
5.     Bring a large pot of water to the boil and drop in the balls. Once they float, they are cooked.  Remove and plunge into a bowl of room temperature water.
Preparing the sweet soup:
6.     Bring water, rock sugar, longans and red dates to boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Turn off heat.  Break the eggs into the sweet soup, wait 20 seconds, then stir very slowly to break the yolks to form “egg flower”.  Add in the jiu niang and stir once.
7.     Ladle the sweet soup into bowls and ladle in the rice balls.  Serve piping hot.

Serves: 4

Tags: Chinese, Dessert.

I was at a my friend’s baby first month party earlier this year and his mom made a Filipino cassava cake that reminded me of the Malaysian bengka ubi.  At that time, the Malay name just slipped me, and Marco keeps on calling it the Tagalog name bibingka.  When I finally recalled the Malaysian name, I was pleasantly surprised at how similar the Malay word is to its Filipino cousin!  Of course, in Malaysia, we refer the tuber with the British word, tapioca.

My grandmother used to make this steamed “kuih” for sale, and my dad taught me how to make the kuih eons ago.  I had forgotten about it until I bit into the wonderful sweet and chewy cake at David’s.  I remember peeling the tubers and grating the tapioca tubers and carefully avoiding the bitter heart that runs along the tuber.  I love the smell of fresh tapioca, and grating it leaves your hands tapioca smelling fresh all day.

Chef’s tip:  The frozen version works just as well (sans fragrant hands!).  You can find the frozen version in most Asian stores.  David’s mother glazed the top with condensed milk to give it a nice golden brown topping.

2 lbs cassava, grated or if using frozen, thawed
3/4 cup sugar or palm sugar
1 can (400 ml) about 1 2/3 cups coconut milk
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1. Squeeze out excess water from the cassava.  Let the strained juice sit 10 mins.  Discard top clear water and add back the settled starch to the cassava.
2. Mix together all the ingredients.  Transfer to an oiled pan.
3. Bake in 400F oven for 40  mins.
4. Place under broiler for a few minutes to brown the top.
5. Let cool before cutting.

Tags: Dessert, Malaysian.

My grandmother used to make and sell nyonya “kuih”.  I wish she was still around so that I can pick up the right skills from her!

Chef’s tip: The green is natural from the pandan leaves.  Besides adding fragrance to the cake, it gives it this beautiful green color.  Blending the leaves with a little water and then extracting the liquid is how you get pandan juice.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups sweet glutinous rice
1 cup coconut milk
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 pieces pandan

8 pandan leaves
½ cup water

3 eggs
¾ cup coconut milk
¾ cup sugar
6 Tablespoons pandan juice (see step 5)

1 Tablespoon corn starch
1 ½ Tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 Tablespoon rice flour
½ teaspoon kosher salt

Banana leaves

Preparing the rice.
1.    Wash the rice. Add water till it covers the rice by 1 inch. Let rice soak at least 6 hours to overnight.
Cooking the rice
2.    Drain rice.  Place the rice in a cake pan lined with banana leaves.   Place in a steamer rack.
3.    Combine sugar and salt with the coconut milk.  Add to the rice.  Bury a knot of pandan leaves in the rice.  Steam for about 20 minutes.
4.    When rice is done, remove the pandan leaves.  Using a piece of banana leaves or aluminum foil, flatten the rice down to form an even compact layer.  Steam for another 10 minutes.
Preparing the pandan juice
5.    Chiffonade the pandan.  Place the pandan and water in a blender and puree.  Strain out solids.  Reserve juice.
Preparing the custard
6.    In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, coconut milk, sugar and pandan juice.  Set aside.
7.    Place the 3 different flours and salt in a bowl and whisk to mix.  Slowly add the liquid egg mixture, a little at a time, and incorporate till it is smooth and there are no more lumps.
8.    In a double boiler, heat the custard, stirring constantly till just begins to thicken.  Remove form heat.
Completing the serimuka
9.    Pour the thickened custard over the compressed and steam over low heat for another 20 minutes, or until set.
10.    Allow to cool completely before cutting.

Serves: 8

Tags: coconut, Dessert, Malaysian.