Winter Solstice Festival (Dong Zhi)

Each year 'Dong Zhi' Festival or Winter Solstice will fall on 22 December. We, Chinese will celebrate it because Dong Zhi represents the end of winter and the beginning of spring blossoms in China. Well, we don't have 4 seasons in Malaysia but we celebrate it anyway. This date is one of the most important dates in the lunar calendar just after Chinese New year. The activity that occurs during this date are getting together and make glutinous rice ball mean tang yuan in Chinese which symbolize 'reunion'.

I had made some cute tang yuan for my boys.. Piggy fish/alien fish LOL!! You can make it either plain or stuffed like sesame paste, red bean paste or gula melaka. Tang Yuan has evolved from a normal ball like shape to various colour and designs and sometimes cartoon characters.

This is the little fish (no more piggy or alien)... 

I did made some other cutey characters too...

Just shape it will do.... 

Glutinous Rice Balls (Tang Yuan)
(Recipe source from : Fiona Low

What you need :-
- 250g Glutinous Rice Flour
- 200g warm water
- black sesame paste/red bean paste/gula melaka

Soup base :-
-Old ginger/Bentong ginger (own preference, how spicy you want)
-5 knots of pandan leaves
-rock sugar to taste
-1 litre of boiling water
-some ice water

Optional :- (for natural colouring)
-Green Tea powder (for green colour)
-Charcoal powder (for black colour)
-Beetroot/dragon fruit (for red colour)
-Sweet potato (yellow colour) ~you can use pumpkin too..

Method :-
1) Boil the ginger and pandan leaves until fragrant (around 1 hr)
2) Add in the rock sugar to taste and set aside
3) Meanwhile , mix the glutinous rice flour and warm water and knead into a smooth dough

4) Shape it into your desired character or shape into small round ball shape.
5) Drop the ready tang yuan into the hot boiling water and once you see the dough is floating on top means the tang yuan is cooked and ready to serve.
6) Put them into a bowl of ice water (this method will make the tang yang QQ)

Little joy joined the crowd too..

If you do not have time for your own natural colours, you may use some food colouring then mix well.

You can also try to make some dry tang yuan. I call it mochi. Just toast some peanuts and blend it. Add in some sugar and mix well with the cooked tang yuan. Delicious~

Happy Winter Solstice everyone~  It doesn't matter how beautiful your tang yuan is. For me the most important thing is that we can have a reunion with our loves one and sit together for a good laugh.