I saw this special form of tang yuan many years ago and had been hoping to try it out. Finally I did.
Every year, I do hope to make some for the winter festival (although there's no winter here), but I just never made some, because no one bothers about it and just end up only me "shiok sendiri".
I was lazy to wrap fillings and decided to serve it 'muah chee style'. Now it looks like pebbles on sand...
I am thinking whether I can construct an aquarium bowl to serve it, complete with aquatic plants, fish and maybe prawns, haha, but that will be sooo big. It's just a crazy idea.
Mine look more like marbles and if you take a look at my source's granite balls, they look sooo real and nice.
I kept mine for more than 6 hours, soaked in room temperature water, waiting for my hubby to come home from work. I reheated the granite balls in the microwave, still submerged in water. Drained them and put them on the peanut sand. He enjoyed his after dinner dessert, saying the peanuts were the loveliest touch.
Granite Sticky Rice Balls
Idea adapted from: maimaidejianguo
200gm glutinous rice flour
14gm or 1 Tbsp butter
90ml boiling water
1-2 Tbsp water
1 tsp cocoa powder
1/2 tsp bamboo charcoal powder
3/4 cup ground roasted peanut + 1/3 cup castor sugar (roughly 2:1 ratio)
1. Bring 1/2 cup of water to boil on a saucepan.
2. Measure the flour and butter and put it in a bowl. Make a well and when the water has boiled, measure 90ml water into the well. (You can either use 6 Tbsp or a measuring cup, or weigh 90gm of water with the mixing bowl directly on the scale)
3. Mix it with chopsticks or a fork. Add in 1 Tbsp of room temperature water and knead (it might still be very warm, but it won't burn your hand). Add more water if it's needed and knead until a dough forms.
4. Divide dough into 4 parts and knead 1 part with charcoal powder and 1 part with cocoa powder.
5. Roll each part into long logs, with equal length. flatten them and stack. Cut the stack into half and stack.
6. Cut the stacked dough into smallish pieces, it's ok if they are not in exact sizes.
7. Roll them into pebble shapes.
8. Bring a saucepan of water to boil. Put the balls of dough into the boiling water. Let them boil until they float. Lower the heat to medium low and let them simmer for another 2-3 minutes.
9. Remove the dough balls from the water and serve with peanut sugar.
You can serve these in light syrup too, of which is the usual way.
Blog on Break :)
See you in January for AFF Hong Kong Macau with a chicken week.
