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Tang Yuan (Glutinous Rice Balls with Red Bean Paste Filling)

Recipe by Connie Veneracion
How much sugar you need for the red bean paste depends on how sweet you want it. You may use less or more than half a cup.
Since only one pot was used to cook the rice balls, the white ones were boiled first, then the yellow ones and, finally, the red ones. That’s to prevent the colored rice balls from bleeding into the white ones.
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 9 hours
Total Time 9 hours 20 minutes
Course Snack
Cuisine Chinese
Servings 4 people
Tang Yuan (Glutinous Rice Balls with Red Bean Paste Filling) in Round Bowl

Ingredients
  

Slow cooker red bean paste

  • 250 grams red mung beans
  • ½ cup sugar
  • ¼ teaspoon salt

Syrup

Rice balls

  • 1 cup glutinous rice flour
  • 1 pinch salt

Instructions
 

Make the read bean paste

  • Rinse the red mung beans several times and drain.
  • Place the beans in the slow cooker, pour in enough water to cover them by four inches, and cook on LOW for eight hours.
  • Using an immersion blender, puree the red mung beans into a paste.
  • Transfer the pureed beans to a pot (it will still appear thin at this point), add the sugar and salt, and cook over medium-low heat, stirring often, until the mixture is a thick paste.
    Home cooked sweet red bean paste
  • Cool the red bean filling.

Make the syrup

  • In a small pan, stir together the sugar and salt with a cup of water.
  • Drop in the pandan leaves and ginger slices.
  • Cook over high heat for five minutes.
  • Leave to cool (do not remove the pandan leaves and ginger).

Make the rice balls

  • In a bowl, stir just enough water into the glutinous rice flour to form a dough.
    Glutinous rice dough for tang yuan
  • Divide the dough into three portions.
  • Add a few drops of red food color to one portion of the dough and knead until uniformly incorporated.
  • Add a few drops of yellow food color to another portion of the dough and knead until the coloring is even.
  • Divide each portion of the dough into one-inch balls.
  • Flatten each ball in the palm of your hand, place teaspoonful of read bean paste at the center and gather the edges to seal in the filling.
    Red, yellow and white glutinous rice balls with sweet red bean paste filling
  • Bring a pot of water to a rolling boil.
  • Drop in the rice balls and cook until they float to the surface.
    Boiling sticky rice balls with red bean filling

Serve the tang yuan

  • Scoop out the rice balls and divide among four bowls.
  • Ladle syrup over the balls and serve.
Keyword Glutinous rice balls, sweet red bean paste