Tang Yuan Soup

There’s a Chinese saying that goes: you(3) yang(4) xue(2) yang(4). Translated to English, it means ‘monkey see monkey do’.

That was what happened to me when I read Ann’s blog about her craving for round dumplings made of glutinous rice flour. Like her, I prefer those with fillings and especially those with black sesame seeds. The plain ones are just too, well, plain and tasteless.

So I took a 5 minutes’ walk from my place to Shop ‘n’ Save in search for tang yuan. I was so glad that they still have stock for black sesame seeds tang yuen. This flavour usually runs out very quickly.

The preparation for tang yuan soup is simple. In order to make it taste nicer, I added extra ingredients to the soup. Here’s my version of it:

Ingredients
1 pack of black sesame seeds tang yuan (~10 balls)
3-4 tbsps of brown sugar
2 stalks of pandan leaves
1 small, crushed ginger (1 inch)
12 dried longans
4 red dates (soaked for 1-2 mins and brush off the dirt stuck in the crevices of the wrinkled skins) – seedless ones preferred as the seeded ones tend to be rather heaty

Method
1) For the soup pot, add 3 bowls of water, ginger, dried longans, red dates and pandan leaves tied into a knot. Bring the water to a rolling boil.

2) Once the water boils in the soup pot, allow it to simmer in moderate heat (can still see some bubbling) for 10 mins. Remove the pandan in the middle of simmering as it might cause the soup to taste bitter.

3) Start boiling the water for tang yuan once the soup pot is boiling. Add enough water to allow tang yuan to float in it later. (The tang yuan are cooked separately as they could cause the soup to become cloudy if cooked in it.)

4) When the water starts to boil, add the frozen tang yuan and wait for them to float to the surface.

5) Once the tang yuan float to the surface, allow it to cook for 1-2 mins before turning off the heat.

6) Scoop out and divide the tang yuan into 2 bowls. Pour the soup into the bowls. Serve while hot. (You can serve it chilled too.)

Preparation time: 5 mins               Cooking time: 15-20 mins

No. of servings: 2

Yang doesn’t fancy tang yuan though.