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Sweet fermented rice with tangyuan is delicious whether cooked sweet or savory; an expert teaches you to make it by hand for the winter solstice

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For the winter solstice, I want some "sweet fermented rice tangyuan"! Sweet fermented rice is a versatile ingredient, delicious whether cooked sweet or savory; an expert teaches you to make it by hand

Next Monday (12/21) is the winter solstice of the Gengzi Year of the Rat, the day with the shortest daylight and the longest night of the year. According to folk custom, eating winter solstice tangyuan adds a year to your age, and once these round dumplings symbolizing reunion are eaten, the Lunar New Year is close at hand.

If eating tangyuan plain feels too monotonous, pair it with its perfect partner, sweet fermented rice! Sweet fermented rice tangyuan is the most fitting food for the winter solstice. In Taiwan, apart from the central and southern regions, this year's winter solstice is especially cold, so put down your hand warmer and have a bowl of piping hot sweet fermented rice tangyuan! May everyone be full of energy and vitality as we welcome the arrival of the Year of the Ox.

A bowl of sweet fermented rice tangyuan for the winter solstice is both seasonal and nourishing (photo / Yang Yuyun)

Sweet fermented rice is a gentle warming tonic; a Chinese medicine practitioner says healthy people can eat it every day

In traditional Chinese medicine theory, sweet fermented rice is sweet in flavor and warm in nature, and can invigorate the blood and boost qi. From the perspective of nutritional science, because sweet fermented rice contains alcohol, it can promote blood circulation and speed up metabolism.

Chinese medicine practitioner Wu Honggan says that rice wine and glutinous rice are both warming tonic ingredients, each with its own function, and once made into sweet fermented rice, the added action of enzymes makes it even more beneficial to the body. "Besides the lungs, liver and kidneys needing enzymes to help them function, the digestive system needs them even more," Wu Honggan says. The pH of sweet fermented rice is around pH4, suitable for intestinal beneficial bacteria to survive, with an effect similar to probiotics, so many people feel their bowel movements become smoother after eating sweet fermented rice, and it is fair to call it an "Oriental yogurt."

Although sweet fermented rice is a seasonal food, Wu Honggan says healthy people can actually eat it every day without issue. Cooking an egg in sweet fermented rice as breakfast in the morning will keep you full of energy all day; heating sweet fermented rice and eating it before bed can invigorate the blood and promote sleep, and can also greatly improve the problem of cold hands and feet in women during winter. If you are worried about too many calories, simply do not add extra sugar, and just do not exceed 30-50 grams per day.

Wu Honggan also mentions that some sweet fermented rice on the market is made with purple rice combined with glutinous rice. Purple rice is rich in anthocyanins and iron with antioxidant functions, and women friends during their menstrual period who eat purple rice sweet fermented rice can nourish the body and ease discomfort.

Sweet fermented rice can be made into desserts, and can also be used in cooking to replace wine and sugar (photo / Yang Yuyun)

Make tangyuan yourself; adding cooked dough starter makes them more elastic

If you are worried that store-bought sweet fermented rice tangyuan contains artificial additives, why not try making it yourself? Well-known blogger Hu Juanjuan (Carol Easy Life), with accumulated page views of 300 million, personally demonstrates for NewsMarket readers how to make sweet fermented rice and tangyuan. She says that from childhood, whenever the weather turned cold, her mother would cook sweet fermented rice with egg for her to eat. Mother Hu also often said that when she was young and the family was not well off, if her mother (that is, Hu Juanjuan's maternal grandmother) cooked sweet fermented rice with egg, the egg would definitely go to the head of the household, her father, and she would be satisfied just to get a little bit of egg drop.

Sweet fermented rice is a tonic for the poor, and tangyuan are a nostalgic sweetness. In the past every household made them, but now you have to go to specific shops to buy them. Hu Juanjuan, lamenting the changes of the times, demonstrates how to make tangyuan.

Take 100g of glutinous rice flour and add 80ml of warm water, mix well until it forms a dough, then first take about 1/5 of the amount and press it into a round cake shape, put it into boiling hot water, and once the dough cake floats, scoop it out and drain, then knead it evenly into the original dough (if it is too sticky to handle, you can add a little glutinous rice flour).

This cooked dough cake is the "cooked dough starter." Hu Juanjuan says that with this extra step, the tangyuan will be more elastic. However, note that you must knead the cooked dough starter into the dough while it is still hot, otherwise the cooled starter is stubborn and unwilling to mix well with the dough.

You can also mix part of the dough with red yeast rice powder to make red tangyuan. The red yeast rice powder should be added slowly to adjust to the color you like. She reminds everyone that red yeast rice tangyuan will darken in color after being put in the pot, so the raw dough does not need to be colored too deeply.

Next, simply roll the dough into a long strip, then divide it into cubes and roll them round, and they are ready to go into the pot. Hu Juanjuan suggests calling the whole family, young and old, to roll tangyuan together, which is also a beautiful memory of cooking with her grandmother and mother in her childhood.

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