Ma xin tang yuan

Dajia hao 大家好!
   About two years ago I went to a chinese restourant near my home, and among the desserts I happened to choose a dessert that looked like this:

I must say, I never had the chance to try it while I was in China. I think it is delicious, and advise, if you have a chance, that you try it. Even if you won't like it, at least you need to have this experience once.

    They are called "麻心汤圆 máxīn tāngyuán":

they are glutinous rice balls staffed with ground sesame seeds in sweet soup.

 

  They are the best, in my opinion, when osmanthus dried flowers are added to the hot sweet water that is the soup. These small yellow-whitish flowers have a delicate sweet scent that helps balancing the flavour of the sesame seeds. 

   If you want to try making the maxin tangyuan on your own, the main ingredients are not difficult to find:

• black sesame seeds,
• glutinous rice flour, 
• lard, 
• sugar. 
• osmanthus dried flowers (optional)

 Osmanthus unfortunately is not easy to find, but maybe you can find the plant and pick some little flowers and let them dry. In Italy it usually blooms in september.

1. First you need to grind the sesame seeds and mix them with lard and sugar. 
2. then you make a dough,  mixing the rice flour and the water gradually. 
3. make little disk shaped pieces of dough (about 3cm diameter)
4. make little balls of sesame 
5. put the sesame balls on the little dough disks and close the disk around the sesame filling, to make little white orb.
6. put them in boiling water, being careful not to let them stick to the cooking pan. Just wait for them to float to the surface: that is when they are ready: stop the boiling with cold water and wait about 30 second. 
7. put the sesame balls in some bowls, together with their cooking water. Add osmanthus flowers (/essence)

   This recipe post is dedicated to my friend S. who has been waiting for it for ages and has encouraged me so much to keep on with it, thank you.

   And thank you for reading. See you next post