Tang Yuan (Dong Zhi)

Dong Zhi or Dong is the most important date in the Chinese calender. It is also the last festival of the Chinese Calender and falls six weeks before the Lunar New Year. During Dong Zhi, or the Winter Solstice festival, it is a traditional Chinese practice for tang yuan to be served as a reminder that one more year has passed by or one have grow one year older. Tang yuan is made from glutinous rice flour and sometimes stuffed with peanut, black sesame seed or red bean paste filling.


This year it fall on 22th Dec (Saturday) and it is also one of our HHH member's run (Goldprick). So I have prepared tang yuan for 40 hash members but the turn up was only 22 members because it was a big day for the Chinese. We managed to finish the tang yuan because one person have more than 2 servings. Some even commented that the tang yuan taste so much better from what they have tasted before.


Tang yuan is made from glutinous rice flour. You can buy ready made tang yuan dough normally white and pink in color from the wet market. But I prefer to make my own home made glutinous rice flour dough without coloring (pink). I steamed the 'Indonesia Sweet Potatoes' and mashed them (approximately 350g). Mix them with 500g glutinous rice flour and 500ml of water. Add the water bit by bit to get into a consistency and knead it into a dough. You will get a natural gold color dough. Pinch a piece of the dough off and shape into small balls using both the palms.

Heat a big pot of water with pandan leaves and lots of ginger to make the sweet syrup soup. Add in sugar and cooked till sugar dissolved. Make sure to scoop out the pandan leaves and ginger. Lastly only add in the cooked tang yuan which are cooked separately.

In a separate saucepan heat up a pot of water. Add the glutinous rice balls into the boiling water and when the rice balls float to the top (indication that it is cooked!) scoop them out and place them in cold water. Mix the cooked tang yuan with the ready boiling sweet syrup soup.


I brought along the mini stove and heat up the tang yuan and served them hot. The run site was at Genting Sempah which is approximately 1500ft above sea level and the weather was cold after a heavy rain.


Have fun and be happy! ♥