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Time to eat "Tangyuan"
(CRIENGLISH.com)
Updated: 2006-02-11 13:51
Tangyuan is the traditional food for the Lantern Festival or Yuanxiao
Festival. The small dumpling balls are usually made of glutinous rice flour.
We call these balls yuanxiao or tangyuan. Obviously, they get the name from
the festival itself. Made of sticky rice flour filled with sweet stuffing and
round in shape, it symbolizes family unity, completeness and happiness.
The fillings inside the dumplings or yuanxiao are either sweet or salty.
Sweet fillings are made of sugar, Walnuts, sesame, osmanthus flowers, rose
petals, sweetened tangerine peel, bean paste, or jujube paste. A single
ingredient or any combination can be used as the filling. The salty variety is
filled with minced meat, vegetables or a mixture.
The way to make yuanxiao also varies between northern and southern China. The
usual method followed in southern provinces is to shape the dough of rice flour
into balls, make a hole, insert the filling, then close the hole and smooth out
the dumpling by rolling it between your hands. In North China, sweet or non-meat
stuffing is the usual ingredient. The fillings are pressed into hardened cores,
dipped lightly in water and rolled in a flat basket containing dry glutinous
rice flour. A layer of the flour sticks to the filling, which is then again
dipped in water and rolled a second time in the rice flour. And so it goes, like
rolling a snowball, until the dumpling is the desired size.
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