Happy Winter Solstice 2016 (冬至快乐!)

Winter officially starts today, with the fewest hours of daylight in 2016. 
Winter Solstice or 冬至 is one of the more important festivals celebrated by Chinese and East Asians. It is a time of reunion for families. My mother, originating from Taiwan, made the glutinous rice balls from scratch. This year, she made both sweet and savoury glutinous rice balls. For savory glutinous rice balls, she made minced meat and mushroom fillings and cooked the rice balls in chicken broth. For the sweet glutinous rice balls, she made them plain and cooked the rice balls in brown sugar and pandan syrup. 
Happy Winter Solstice 2016!

Savoury Glutinous Rice Balls with minced meat and mushroom filling

A glorious orange sunset to celebrate winter solstice (冬至)

PS. With my food poisoning, my mother only allowed me to have one savoury glutinous rice ball in case my stomach couldn't take it. Oh well, still better than not eating any!

冬至 Dongzhi Festival or Winter Solstice 2014

Yesterday happened to be Dongzhi Festival (冬至) or Winter Solstice too. One of the more important activities of Dongzhi Festival is the making and eating of tang yuan or glutinous rice balls. My mother prepared a big pot of tang yuan in brown sugar soup which we could eat throughout the day. Actually my mother already cooked tang yuan in savoury chicken broth on Sunday. Eating tang yuan in a savoury broth is Taiwanese style as most, if not all Singaporeans usually only have their tang yuan in sweetened soup.

Dong Zhi 2013 (Winter Solstice Festival)

Happy Dong Zhi 2013 or Happy Winter Solstice Festival 2013! :)

We cooked small coloured glutinous rice balls and the larger red-bean stuffed ones in brown sugar soup (as seen in the photo). It was really nice eating the steaming hot glutinous rice balls in brown sugar soup on a cool night. :) 
Dong Zhi is a time for families to get together and tangyuan ((湯圓) or glutinuous rice balls which symbolise reunion, are eaten. :) After Dong Zhi, there will be days with longer daylight hours and therefore an increase in positive energy flowing in.

Taiwanese Cuisine

Today, my mother cooked one of her Taiwanese dishes - Savoury Tang Yuan (Savoury Glutinous Rice Balls). This dish is not found in Singapore. Most people here are much more familiar with Tang Yuan as a dessert. But in Taiwan, we have Tang Yuan as a savoury dish too.

My mother first made the tang yuan dough from scratch and then made the minced pork filling for the tang yuan. So Savoury Tang Yuan is basically glutinous rice balls with pork filling instead of the usual sweet fillings of red bean, yam, peanut, etc. These savoury tang yuan are then cooked in soup and served with Tung Ho (a vegetable with a distinct taste). I love this dish because it is a refreshing change from the usual tang yuan dessert and I love glutinous rice balls, whatever the filling is. Lol. :)