This year on 22nd. December is the Winter solstice Day aka 'Kuo Tong' in Cantonese. Glutinous rice balls or 'tong yuen' is a must have on this very special day. My mom always remind us no matter what we must have this tong yuen celebration. According to the Chinese people winter solstice is important than the Chinese New Year celebration. Family members will return home to have a gathering dinner and most important everyone will have to eat some of the tong yuen. Prayer and offering of tong yuen, cooked dishes to our ancestor and God is a must too. As always I prefer to made tong yuen myself, easy to made and delicious. Here the recipe the traditional way.
500 gm glutinous flour (Thailand brand)
2 to 3 tbsp. icing sugar
Water to make syrup soup
sugar to taste
few pandan leafs
food colouring
1. Mix flour with icing sugar well, add in water a little at a time until it become a pliable dough.
2. Divide the dough and add in colours of your choice,
3. Best rest the dough for 1 hour or immediately roll into small balls, put a side.
4. Boil enough water in a pot to make syrup, when water boiling add in sugar to taste and pandan leafs, cover, turn off heat.
5. Meanwhile in another pot add enough water, when boiling add in the rolled balls batch by batch to cook.
6. When the balls is floating, scoop up the balls and put directly in to the syrup mixture. Ready to serve.
