Aaahh…I love ah balling (or tangyuan as it is commonly known in traditional Chinese). These small dumplings made of glutinous rice flour contain an assortment of fillings, such as ground peanuts and sugar, crushed black sesame, sweetened red beans, mashed taro and even green tea paste.
They come served in a hot sweet soup; either peanut, or in this instance, ginger, pandan and rock sugar. The herbacious ginger adds a nice kick of heat.
Ah Balling Peanut Soup (est 1947) can be found in a few locations across Singapore (their main shop being in Golden Mile Food Centre). This little cart was is found in Chinatown.
Ah, Tang Yuan. Always look forward to eating it every year
There’s something special about the texture of the tang yuan skin that I really like. How it just melts in your mouth!
A mate of mine cooked this during CNY, had it for the first time, now I finally know what it’s called!
The Ahhh Balling name cracks me up, reminds me of the Jim Jones ‘we fly high’ song, to think he talks bout bling and a chinese dessert haha =P
Definately love the ginger kick in the soup, the peanut dumplings were my fav. I’m thinking the ginger soup would go great with some vanilla icecream =)
Gald you like Tang Yuan … I personally hate it
)) I like the dry version —- Mua Zhi.
Hey Will – I really enjoyed the texture as well. I guess I’m more used to chewy mochi (Japanese style), so found them really tender and interesting. I must admit I loved the peanutty and black sesame centres.
Hi aaron – ooh, they would be kind of interesting to make! I’ve made the ginger syrup/soup a number of times, normally to go with tau fu fa (beancurd dessert).
Hiya Jin Hooi – are mua zhi like mochi? Or are they soft?
I went there for them during the winter solstice festival last year. The line was super long. missed out on trying the green tea ones and they ran out of ginger soup!
Hey kat – ooh, you must go back for the ginger soup. It is very, very good.