Glutinous Rice Balls with Piantang

Festive rice balls in red, eaten during the Chinese New Year and Mid Autumn festival

We had an wonderful evening  witnessing  the dazzling skills of Yevgeny Sudbin with the SSO.  The other reason it was special was because my favorite SSO concertmaster,  Alexander Souptel , was back for the performance. I could not decide what I enjoyed more, Sudbin's fingerwork or Souptel's  charisma with his violin.

Due to our  schedule, most concert evenings mostly make for hasty dinners, which we do not enjoy. All was not lost as we often had suppers to wrap up  the evening of music.

This supper was created from another of hubby's oral archives.  The concept was from his late mother  and details were hazy .  I had a field day working with edible playdoh  recreating  hubby's childhood snack.  There was no strict measurements and it was not difficult to get it right by gut feel.

( PianTang or bar brown sugar can also be substituted by palm sugar commonly known as gula melaka. )

There is always the urge to personalize the rice balls. Later batch had mathematical equations drawn on

Ingredients :

Finely ground glutinous rice flour

Tepid water , colored with food dye , color of your choice

Pieces of cane bar sugar, cubed ( PianTang )

3 cups of finely ground peanut

In a mixing bowl, pour liquid over the flour and  stirring with your fingers until the dough resembles playdoh consistency.

You may not need to use up all the  water

Use a measuring spoon and scoop a spoonful of dough.

Push a sugar cube into the dough. Do this for all the entire batch of dough.

Chill for about 3 hours.

Bring a pot of water to a rolling boil. Drop the rice balls into the boiling water gently.

The rice balls are ready when they float on the water.

To serve, coat them with finely grated peanut or serve with sweet ginger soup.