Marbled Tangyuan, Black Sesame Filling

In Chinese New Year, my family would have Tangyuan in the morning of the 7th and the 15th. Chinese consider 15th the end of Chinese New Year holiday. Like dumpling, tangyuan is also a symbol of family union. Unlike people from northern part of China, Cantonese don’t have a custom of having dumpling, but tangyuan is common festival food in most union festivals.

Red bean paste and sesame paste are two common tangyuan filling. The black sesame filling is more easily to be prepared than red bean paste. In the tangyuan recipe this year, I would make it a little prettier.

• Ingredients –
  Black sesame, 90g;
  White sesame, 10g;
  Unsalted butter, 50g;
  Sugar, 40g;
  Glutinous rice flour, 2 cups;
  Hot water, 1 cup;
  Cocoa powder, 2tbsp;
  Candied osmanthus, for garnishing, optional, can be obtained in Chinese grocery store

How to do –

1. Toast the sesame seeds in non-stick pan without adding any oil. Keep medium heat and keep stirring, otherwise the sesame would get burnt easily. Adding a little white sesame seeds can make you easier to judge if the black sesame seeds are toasted or not. Just toast them till white sesame turn golden. Or you could use white sesame seeds only;

2. Powder the sesame seeds with food processer and put in a big mixing bowl;

3. Put in butter and sugar and mix well. You could melt the butter beforehand but my sesame seeds are hot enough to melt the butter. Traditionally lard is used but it’s quite difficult to obtain good lard so using butter acceptable. You could have a taste but 40g of sugar is sweet enough for me;

4. The filling mixture in this stage might be a bit too soft to roll in balls. You could put it in fridge and let it set, 5 to 10 minutes should be good enough;

5. Now you could roll the mixture into balls, about 10g each. Keep in fridge and let them set. You would find a lot easier to make tangyuan in this way;

6. When the stuffing is safe in fridge, let’s prepare the wrap. In two big mixing bowl, put in 1 cup of glutinous rice flour equally in each one, one portion with 2tbsp of cocoa powder;

7. Then slowly add in hot water, about half cup for each bowl, mix till lumpy;

8. Knead the dough till smooth. Set aside and rest for 10mins, cover it with wet cloth or cling film. Glutinous rice flour would easily get dry;

9. Combine the two doughs, knead the dough casually but not mix them well;

10. Roll the dough into a long roll;

11. Cut into small doughs, 20g to 25g each would be nice. Roll them into balls;

12. Now the filling is ready. Put the small dough in your palm, press the dough in the middle and wrap the filling in;

13. If you can’t finish the tangyuan in one go, dust some rice flour on in case they stick together, and keep them in freezer, usually I would prepare a larger portion;

14. Plenty of water in a soup pot, bring to boil and put in the tangyuan. Lid on and cook in high heat till the tangyuan float on the water top; Add in a cup of cold water and bring to boil again; Add a cup of cold water once again and also bring to boil. This is the way you make sure your big tangyuan or jiaozi (dumpling) are cooked thoroughly.

15. Garnish with candied osmanthus, if you can find any from Chinese grocery store;

15. In this recipe, the filling is not very runny. If you want runny melted filling, add more butter, 80g would be good enough. But the more butter, the more easily the dumplings would break when cooking. Don’t worry, make the wrap a little thicker, 30g each small dough should do the job.