It’s Winter Solstice Again! Mango Smoothie Tang Yuan

I have been very busy lately with all the work on my online shop. I am getting into grips of  the various skills that I need to have in order to do business today. When I started my business way back in the 80’s there were no computers ( only big multinationals have them), no internet ( maybe later in the 90s, but it was known as the World Wide Wait as it was so slow). Now I have to learn how to make use of all the social media to publicise myself and my business. Well, well, I can still learn new tricks!

Now that I have some time, I am blogging again after about a month or so.

For the past few ‘Tang Chek’ (winter solstice) festivals, I have tried a variety of ways in making the glutinous balls more interesting. I have tried various fillings and tried morphing them into kueh onde-onde.

Today, I decided to make it into a smoothie. We are used to having bubble tea, so why not make the glutinous rice balls with mango smoothie?

My  great idea was to make the glutinous rice balls with fresh mango inside. This will be the ‘mother’ balls, which are bigger, and I intend to make some smaller ones to go with it.

Here is the recipe.

I made the dough a bit differently this time. Instead of just using cold water, decided to use hot boiling water. This method gives a more pliable dough and it the balls do not puff up as much during cooking. Other than that, there is not much difference.

Here is the recipe for the hot water dough.

150 g Glutinous rice flour

80g Hot boiling water

Filling: A few slices of fresh mango. I cut it into 1/2 cm cube.

Food colours of your choice. I  used yellow and red.

Method:

1. Take about 80g of the rice flour and place in a heat-proof container. 
2. Pour  80g of the hot boiling water and stir quickly with a pair of chop sticks until you get a sticky mass and try to mix as much as you can to get an even dough. Leave to cool.
3. When cool enough to handle, add in more of the flour and mix to get a dough that does not stick to your hand anymore. You will not use up all the flour. Knead lightly to get a smooth dough.
4. Divide the dough into 2 or 3 portions depending on the colours that you want. I use about half of the dough to wrap the mango.
5. I pinch 12 pieces of the white dough and roll them into balls. Then I place 1 piece of the mango cube in the centre and roll up making sure the mango is sealed up in the dough. Set aside.
6. I divide the rest of the dough into 2 and colour one portion pink and another portion yellow. I make these coloured balls smaller than the one with the mango filling. This means that the mango balls are the ‘mother’ balls and the rest are all the children! 
7. Bring a small pot of water to boil. When the water starts to boil, add in the mango balls and let it cook for a few minutes until it float up to the surface. Remove the balls with a sieve and put in a bowl of cold water.
8. Repeat for all the balls.

For the mango smoothie:

1 ripe mango

( I also used some mango juice)

Crushed ice

Mint and lime slices to decorate

Method:

1. Blend the mango with some crushed ice.
2. Pour into 1 or 2 glasses.
3. Add in the large balls and the small ones too.
4. Decorate with the mint, cut lime and the small balls.

Here is the result:

So now you see the nice photos. 

The Verdict?

It is smoothie looks good. The mango balls stayed at the bottom as I used some mango juice as well. Taste wise, the mango balls taste a bit sourish as there is mango (acidic). I decorated the glasses with the smaller balls so that the balls show. The balls are soft and chewy. I am not a smoothie person. So you might want to add some sugar to the smoothie as it is a bit sourish.

Not satisfied, I decided to try making Savoury Tang Yuan Soup.

I will post the savoury tang yuan tomorrow.

I hope you find this post a bit intriguing and is tempted to try it out if you are a smoothie person.

Until the next post, please share and like the post by sending the link.

Have a good holiday!

Penang Lassie