Winter Solstice 冬至

Today is the 22nd of December (农历十一月二十八）and we are celebrating the 冬至 (Winter Solstice, Dōngzhì)) festival. Tonight is the longest night of the year.

Technically, we are all older by one year today. To celebrate this festival, there is the standard festive dinner but the key festive food item today is a sweet dish. This is the TangYuan or 汤圆 or sweet glutinous rice balls.

To make the dough for the tangyuan (汤圆), just knead water and glutinous rice flour until the dough is a nice consistency that does not stick to the hand or fall apart when making the balls. The rice ball is usually about 1.5 cm in diameter. In our family, mum always make the rice ball in the traditional pink and white ... nowadays you get them in rainbow colours!

Cook the tangyuan (汤圆) by adding them to boiling water and cook until the rice balls float. Then they are ready to be added to the sugar syrup.The sugar syrup is just water and sugar though we flavour the syrup by adding the very fragrant pandan leaves (which are removed after the syrup is ready).

Just add the cooked tangyuan (汤圆) to the pandan-flavoured sugar syrup and there you have it!

Have a good time and enjoy your tangyuan (汤圆) and the festive dinner with your family!

Festive Fare for Winter Solstice 冬至

The 冬至 (Winter Solstice, Dōngzhì Festival) festival is on the 22nd of December (农历十一月二十八）and as for each of the festival days in the Lunar Year, my nephew, Fah, who is the third son of my eldest sister, will send over festival food a few days earlier for my mum in a 4-tier tiffin carrier and a big bowl of fried noodles.

The Lee （李） family of my eldest sister is a family of chefs but in their businesses, they specialise in making fresh hand-made noodles and have three companies supplying the bulk of the fresh noodles used in Kuching. They also export to Kuala Lumpur, Johore and Singapore. For family festive occasions, they will make and cook special noodles for the celebrations. I love their duck eggs noodle specially made for the Lunar New Year!

Back to the food for the 冬至 (Winter Solstice) festival......see the spread of three meat, one soup and one noodle dishes.

Fried egg noodles （炒全蛋面) using their specially-made all-eggs noodles.

Curry Chicken （加里鸡） 

Deep-fried shaomai (烧卖)

Stewed Duck in Sweet Sauce (甜卤鸭）

Seafood And Meatball Soup (海鲜肉圆汤）

The menu varies from festival to festival but the noodle dish is always part of the menu. Yummy!

冬至 - Winter Solstice Festival

Today is 冬至(Dōngzhì Festival) or the Winter Solstice Festival.

For the Chinese it is the time, when one adds on one year to one's age and to eat 湯圓 (tangyuan) - small rice balls made from glutinous rice flour and cooked in a sweet syrup. The 湯圓 (tangyuan) are traditionally pink and white in colour but now people use other colours as well. Some of the湯圓 (tangyuan) also comes with fillings  - amongst them are those made from peanuts, sesame seed, or  lotus seed paste.

During the morning's worship and prayers to the family ancestors,  one of the food items amongst the offerings will be 湯圓 (tangyuan).

Of course, the 湯圓 (tangyuan) have to be hand-made at home.  It is pretty easy. All you need are glutinous rice flour and water plus a bit of colouring where necessary. My mum prefers plain pink and white 湯圓 (tangyuan) - no fillings

Knead the mixture to a consistent dough such that it feel like play dough.

The just make the dough into small balls.

Add to boiling water and once they are floating, they are done. For the syrup, it is just plain sugar solution though I add in pandan leaves for a nice pandan flavour. There you have it.

Happy 冬至(Dōngzhì).