Ah Balling 
From Singapore Hotels & Singapore Lifestyle
|
Ah Balling (汤圆 in Chinese), also known as Tang Yuan, is a Teochew Chinese Dessert. Basically, it comprises glutinous rice balls served in a hot sweet soup, such as peanut soup or even ginger soup). Each rice ball contains a sweet paste made from lotus seed, red bean, black sesame, ground peanuts or yam. They are made separately then cooked in hot water for a few minutes. The soup is made from rock sugar and pandan leaves. This is ladled onto the rice balls just before serving. Ah Balling is a sweet dessert, perfect for anyone who has a sweet tooth.
A good paste from black sesame and peanut, is one where they are roasted to a point where there is a nice aroma coming from them, then crushed and made into paste. When you bite into a good ah balling, the aroma and fine texture of the paste should tantalize your taste buds.
There are three type of soup that is served with Ah Balling. And they are plain, ginger and peanut soup. All of them are cooked with pandan leaves and rock sugar. For ginger soup, large amount of ginger is added to prepare the ginger soup so when drinking it, you will experience a bit of spicinese that is unique to ginger. But ginger being a herb in nature, allows you to have your dessert and still keep healthy at the same time.
In recent years, many places have started a new trend by adding peanuts to the serving soup. The peanuts have been boiled to a point that they are still solid in the soup, but will disintegrate once you put them into your mouth.
Regardless of which soup you choose, the rice balls should be soft and tender with a little bit of a bite when you break it open with your teeth. The glutinous rice shell and filling should then melt in your mouth and slide down your throat.
