Winter Solstice is only a few days away. This year, it falls on December 21. In solar term, the sunshine is the weakest and the daytime is the shortest on Winter Solstice because on this day, the earth’s axial tilt is the farthest away from the sun. Winter Solstice is also more commonly known as midwinter and it indicates the summit of winter.
The Chinese especially in southern China as well as Chinese communities in overseas celebrate Winter Solstice as one of their most important annual festivals besides the Chinese New Year, the Dragon Boat Festival and the Mooncake Festival. They call it the Dongzhi Festival (冬至, Dōng zhì). ‘Dong’ (冬) literally means winter while ‘Zhi’ (至) means extreme or maximum. Dongzhi Festival is a time for the family members to get together. Traditionally, the Chinese make and eat Tangyuan (汤圆, Tāng Yuán), balls made of glutinous rice cooked in sweet soup or savory broth.
Fuzhou (福州, Foochow) Tangyuan however, is different. Our Tangyuan do not come with sweet soup or savory broth. Fuzhou Tangyuan is a dry dish. The following show how the Fuzhou people prepare their Tangyuan or glutinous rice balls.
1. Glutinous rice flour is mixed with a small amount of water to make dough.
Surprisingly, the best glutinous rice flour is from Thailand!
Glutinous rice flour is poured into a bowl
Water is mixed to make dough
Making dough
2. The dough is then rolled and split to form balls.
The dough
The dough is rolled and split into small pieces
Kneaded into small balls
3. The glutinous rice balls are cooked in boiling water.
Cooked in boiling water
4. In a bowl mix well soybean powder with sugar.
Soybean powder mixes well with sugar
5. The balls will float once fully cooked. Scoop up from the water and toss the glutinous rice balls inside the bowl until all balls are coated with soybean powder and sugar.
Toss with soybean powder and sugar
Delicious Tangyan or glutinous rice balls
How is your version of Tangyuan? Care to share with us? By the way, do you know that the end of world portrayed in the movie 2012 falls on winter solstice too? Interesting, huh…
Technorati Tags: Winter Solstice, Dongzhi Festival, Fuzhou, Foochow, Tangyuan, glutinous rice ball
The Fuzhou Snack: Tangyuan by Life Is Like That, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Malaysia License.
jam | 
December 20th, 2009 | 
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nanged. The tong yuan looks nice. :)
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Thanks for the nang!
this is a dry version?
i prefer mine to be wet lol
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I had tried the wet one before, but I still prefer the dry version of mine!
Thought you came back from BKI oh its a scheduled post. Never tasted Tangyuan like this kind of preparation before, either plain sweet with tongsui or ’salty’ with meat which I liked very much. My mom used to remind me to balik kampung saying ‘Dong’ is ‘bigger’ (grand) than CNY must go back home for celebration. But when come CNY, when I said since celebrated ‘Dong’ no need to go home she said also grand must come home. I love to tease my mom and quite playful at times. TQ for sharing.
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You are right! Elders consider Dong Zhi as bigger as Chinese New Year in which reunion of the family is emphasized.
My fav version of tang yuen? Plain glutinous rice balls in hot ginger syrup! :)
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In hot ginger syrup?
I shall be celebrating the Winter Solstice Festival with Malaysian and Filipino colleagues here in Port Moresby the first time tomorrow. I am looking forward to the celebration at the Company Expatriates’ Mess.
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It must be a wonderful experience to celebrate Dong Zhi festival in Papua New Guinea
Wow so easy flour and water, massage the dough then turn them into tang yuan. All the time thought very complicated only remember how to play with the moth balls when young. Not my favorite dish because our way of cooking is very plain but now after seeing so many variation I may need to check and balance my perception of tang yuan. Thanks so much.
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You got to try my way of making Tangyuan! Sure you like it!
Even though I’m not Chinese, I do love to eat the tang yuan, I prefer mine with red bean filling and in a sweet soup. yummy!
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Sound yummy
Eh your version is creative and easy to do! Well, easier than to wrap the filling INSIDE the balls I guess. I tried to make that once and the filling just came exploding out when I boiled them. FML
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Witch, you should scoop the balls up once they are floating! They float when fully cooked
Your version of Tang Yuen we call ‘Mo chi’ (i think) in Malaysia.. and we usually coat it with ground nuts and sugar! My version is certainly different from yours. Thanks for dropping a line on my blog.. i initially thought it was a link to a virus or something *sorryparanoid*. Any idea how Fu ching ppl eat tang yuan?
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