I remember, as a kid, my grandparents would serve their grandchildren apple crisp, fresh from the oven, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, as an afternoon snack. The smell was enticing and everyone would dig in. Everyone except me.
Instead I would wait, for what seemed to my young brain an excruciatingly long time, nudging expectantly at the contents of the plate with my spoon, until the ice cream would soften and bleed all over the crisp. It was perhaps my first trial in delayed gratification, and it was worth it, because in my 9-year-old mind, cold lumpy cream with bits of soggy oatmeal and specks of cinnamon was so much better than what my siblings and cousins were happily bulldozing off their plates as I watched.
Sweet soup may seem like a foreign concept to North Americans (despite feeding sugary cereal to our kids for breakfast), but in the Far East it is quite common. They come in many permutations: they can be made with dairy, coconut milk or tea, and can be garnished with fruit, nuts, tapioca balls, beans or dumplings.
Today’s soup, tang yuan, is closely tied with the customs of the Spring Lantern Festival in China, celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first month of the Chinese lunar calendar. Tang yuan is made with glutinous rice dumplings cooked in water and served in a hot, sweet liquid, sometimes flavoured with herbs or spices. The filling for the dumplings can be red bean paste, peanut butter, jujube paste or black sesame paste.
For my today’s version, I chose a filling of black sesame paste, because I love the way it gushes out of the dumpling when you bite into it. Messy… but extremely satisfying. For the tea, I chose a blend of three botanicals: nutty, aromatic pandan, warming, spicy ginger, and earthy, sweet luo han guo.
About the Tea Ingredients
A botanical description of the Pandanus genus, from the Natural History Bulletin of the Siam Society (Stone:1971)
Pandan Leaves
(Pandanus amaryllifolius)
There are many species in the Pandanus genus, a group of palm-like plants, commonly known as screw pines, native to the tropics and subtropics of South-East Asia, but pandanus amaryllifolius is unique among them for having fragrant leaves. Pandan leaves are bright green and taste slightly sweet. They are used in the cooking, both sweet and savoury of many parts of South and South East Asia. If the smell wafting from your cooking pot after you’ve thrown in a pandan leaf or two seems oddly familiar, it is due to the molecule 2-Acetyl-1-Pyrroline, the same aromatic compound which makes hot buttery popcorn, wheat bread crusts and cooked fragrant rice smell so enticing.
Look for pandan leaves in the frozen section of Asian groceries.
Botanical illustration of luo han guo, from Chinese Herbal Medicine: Materia Medica (Bensky et al.:2004)
Luo Han Guo (罗汉果 / 羅漢果)
(Siraitia grosvenorii, previously Momordica grosvenorii)
Known as monk fruit in English, the fruit from the gourd family has been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine for centuries for its “cooling” nature, for clearing heat from the lungs and throat, treating cough and sore throats, quenching thirst and “moistening” the intestines. It is cultivated in the southern Chinese provinces of Guangdong, Guizhou, Hunan and Jiangxi. Luo han guo became a botanical curiosity of commercial interest in the West because it also tastes extremely sweet, thanks to a group of compounds called mogrosides. Apart from efforts to extract mogrosides from monk fruit to commercialize as a sugar substitute, these compounds have been studied for their anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, and for their ability to lower blood glucose by regulating AMPK. In China, luo han guo is used in infusions and soups, for its sweetness as well as its medicinal properties.
You can find dried luo han guo with the other dried and preserved ingredients at Asian groceries, or in Chinese herbal medicine shops.
Joëlle
Serves 2-3
Soft glutinous rice dumplings with a delicious black sesame filling, served warm in sweet, aromatic infusion of ginger, pandan and luo han guo.
Save Recipe
Ingredients
- 100g-150g ginger, peeled
- 2 pandan leaves
- 1 luo han guo
- 1 tbsp honey
- 1 tbsp shio koji (or a pinch of salt)
- 65g sesame seeds, toasted
- 2 tbsp coconut oil
- 1 tbsp honey
- 1 tbsp shio koji (or a pinch of salt)
- 100g glutinous rice flour
- 100g water
Instructions
- Toast sesame seeds in a frying pan over medium heat until fragrant and starting to smoke. Transfer immediately to a bowl or plate to cool down.
- Grind sesame seeds in a food processor or coffee grinder until finely ground . The sesame seeds will start to release oil and stick to the sides of the food processor.
- Melt coconut oil in a small saucepan over low heat. Once melted, add ground sesame seeds and mix to combine.
- Remove from heat and stir in honey and shio koji.
- Transfer mixture to a glass container and let cool to room temperature.
- While the paste is cooling, slice the ginger into rounds and bruise them with a mortar and pestle.
- Break up the shell and dried flesh of the luo han guo into small pieces and put them in a pot. Add the ginger slices, pandan leaves and water.
- Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 20 -30 minutes (alternatively, you can put the those ingredients into the Instant Pot and cook on high pressure for 12 minutes, with natural release).
- Strain the tea, then mix in honey and shio koji. If not used right away, you can store the tea in the fridge for a week or so.
- Once the sesame paste is cool, scoop out small portions (about 9g), shape them into balls, and place them, covered, in the freezer until they harden.
- Meanwhile, put the glutinous rice flour into a mixing bowl and pour in the water, bit by bit, mixing with your hand until a dough has formed, and it no longer sticks to the surface of the bowl (you may not need to use all the water).
- Cover the bowl and leave the dough to rest for at least 15 minutes.
- After 15 minutes, oil the palms of your hands.
- Pinch off a portion of dough (around 12g) and roll it into a ball.
- Flatten the ball into a shallow bowl, place a ball of black sesame paste in the middle and carefully wrap the dough around the sesame paste to seal it in. Keep a clean, damp cloth nearby to wipe your fingers if they get stained with the black sesame paste before you touch the white dough.
- Carefully roll the dough between your hands to make it nice and round once more.
- Put water in a pot and bring to a boil. Add the dumplings, bring the water back to a simmer and cook for 5 minutes. The dumplings should be floating by this point.
- Transfer the dumplings to a bowl of lukewarm water to cool down slightly (this will also prevent them from sticking together).
- When you are ready to serve, place two or three dumplings in each serving bowl and pour hot tea over them.
Notes
Shio koji (塩麹) is a lacto-fermented mixture of rice koji (rice inoculated with aspergillus oryzae spore -- the basis for many well-know Japanese ferments such as miso, sake and soy sauce). It provides enzymes and probiotics while imparting the dish with a unique umami flavour. You can substitute sea salt, himalayan salt or fish sauce. To learn more about shio koji, how to make it at home, and how to use it in the kitchen, click here.
Calories
Fat
Carbs
Protein
References
Bensky, D., Clavey, S., & Stöger, E. (2004). Chinese herbal medicine materia medica. Seattle, WA: Eastland Press.
Liu, C., Dai, L., Liu, Y., Dou, D., Sun, Y., & Ma, L. (2018). Pharmacological activities of mogrosides. Future Medicinal Chemistry, 10(8), 845-850. doi:10.4155/fmc-2017-0255
Stone, B. (1971). A Preliminary Survey of the Pandanaceae of Thailand and Cambodia. Natural History Bulletin of the Siam Society, 24(1), 1-32. Bangkok.
Guidance and Inspiration
Hot Thai Kitchen — Black Sesame Balls
Nyonya Cooking — Luo Han Guo Tea
❤ Thank you Pailin and Grace!
