Tis the Season...for Glutinous Rice Balls

It is that time of the year again...No, not Christmas, I am talking about Winter Solstice (冬至). For the Chinese, it is one of the important dates of the year. Since winter solstice is the longest night in winter, therefore passing it represent that things would get better, since the days will get longer again. Thus a celebration is called for when you have 'survived' the longest day in winter.

The Winter Solstice celebration is common amongst the East Asians, and Winter Solstice is also celebrated by the Germanic people as Yule-tide, the precursor (pagan version) of Christmas.

For the Chinese, the Winter Solstice festival is an opportunity for family reunions. Family gatherings will then eat glutinous rice balls. Usually white or white and red glutinous balls are made, offered to deities and ancestors and shared amongst family members. They can be eaten in dark sugar syrup, or in a sweetened broth or rolled with peanuts. I usually make a four-coloured version to represent the four seasons: white, red, yellow, green and eaten with fragrant screw-pine scented soup. The balls are usually made without any filling but this year I decided to make glutinous white and black glutinous rice balls with filling. Here's my black and white five prosperity glutinous balls in soya milk.

Black and White Glutinous Rice Balls in Soya Milk. Perhaps they can represent the Yin-Yang symbol.

Here's my version of Five Prosperity Glutinous Rice Balls (五福临门汤圆)

For the filling (the five 'nuts')

8-10 whole cashew nuts

10 whole groundnuts

10 halves of walnut

11/2 tablespoons of crushed almonds or 10 whole almonds

2 tablespoons of dessicated coconut (the not so nut nut)

2 tablespoon castor sugar (or 1 tablespoon castor, 1 tablespoon brown sugar)

(you can substitute the coconut for macadamia or hazelnut)

The different nuts before being chopped.

Chop the whole nuts into small bits and pieces. Make sure they are about the same size. Put all the nuts (except the dessicated coconut) in a pan. Over a low flame/heat, toast them for about 3 - 5 min until they are fragrant. Make sure you keep stirring them to prevent them from burning. You know the nuts are ready when you hear them sizzling as they release their oils and the smallest bits start to brown. Remove from heat and keep stirring for 2 minutes or until cooled.

Pour the nuts into a blender/grinder and blend until they are fine and stick together. It is OK if some of them are still rough bits and pieces as you want some texture from them. Pour the dessicated coconut and quickly toast them over low heat till just slightly yellow. Add to the nut mixture and add the sugar. You can reduce or increase the sugar according to your taste. Blend them again to mix them and pour the mixture (should be at least a crumbly paste) onto a plate.

Add some light cooking oil (eg. 1 teaspoon of canola oil or corn oil) to help bind and make it easy for you to roll the filling. If you've added too much oil, increase the nuts proportionately to absorb the oil. Roll the filling into small (about 1cm in diameter) balls. Set aside in the refrigerator to stiffen the mixture.

The filling rolled out and ready to be chilled.

Dough

A small bowl of glutinous rice flour (100g - 200g)

Adequate amount of syrup water and plain water

There are many ways to get springy chewy balls. One is to thoroughly knead the dough to pull the gluten. Another method is to add a secondary kind of flour, usually cooked through like mung bean or potato starch. A third method is to use up to 1/3 of the glutinous rice flour that has been added with boiling hot water and rapidly stirred. This cooks the starch and denatures the gluten, making it springy. Use syrup as part of the mixture to form a stiff, malleable dough. This makes the starch sweet and you do not have to soak it in syrup before eating. A small bowl of flour will make about 24 - 36 balls, depending on the size of the glutinous rice balls.

The white balls all ready to be dropped into boiling hot water

Black Glutinous Rice Balls

You can make 'black' (purple actually) glutinous rice balls by using black glutinous rice flour. Use around 80% black glutinous rice flour and 20% normal glutinous rice flour to make the dough smoother and hold better. You can use 100% black rice flour dough, but the balls will be grainy (not bouncy) like eating black glutinous rice pudding (bubur pulut hitam) and it will severely colour the liquid if left standing for too long. I like the gritty texture of 100% black glutinous rice balls. Just make sure you use syrup water to make the dough or else it will not be sweet enough (or adjust the filling by over sweetening it).

Make a small ball out of the dough and then stick your thumb in it. With your index finger, slowly thin it out so that you get a concave shaped disc or a bowl like shape. Place the pre-rolled filling and close it up. Roll the ball and ensure that the filling is completely sealed in. Cover the already rolled balls to prevent them from cracking. You can also roll the balls sttraight into a pot of boiling water.

Cooking the balls

A pot of hot boiling water

A pot of chilled/iced water or cold tepid water

Get a pot of water, making sure that the pot is deep enough. Make sure that the water has come to a rolling boil before putting in the balls. Leave the balls to cook in the boiling water. When they are done, they will float to the surface. If you are cooking black glutinous rice balls, do let them cook a little longer as the starch imbibes at a slower rate. Once the balls have floated to the surface, scoop them up and transfer them into the bowl/pot of cold water. 

These balls are ready to be lifted off the pot into a bowl of cold water since they have floated to the surface of the boiling water.

Wait for it to cool down before serving them. If you need to keep them a day or so, transfer them to a new bowl of cold water. Make sure you keep black glutinous rice balls separate from the white glutinous rice balls as the colour will transfer.

The cooked black glutinous rice balls in cold water. They tend to stain the water so keep them separated from the white balls.

Orchids from Pesta Bunga Shah Alam 2011

Shah Alam is having another flower festival at the moment (16-18 Dec 2011). This is part of the Lake Carnival (Karnival Tasik) where there is a Grand Finale to a fishing competition (Pertandingan Memancing GP Selangor). The flower festival is of course just stalls set up by nurseries selling fruit trees, herbs, flowers and orchids. Parking is almost non-existent nearby (save for a tiny parking lot). You can park at the PKNS complex across the road, or park further away and walk. Some take the risk and park illegally by the roadside. At last year's festival, some of the visitors and stall owners fell victim to multiple summons by the traffic police.

Inspired by Autumn Belle's beautiful orchid pictures, I made up my mind that I will get an orchid for the cabinet by the balcony sliding door, as the top is bare with just a painted bowl sitting there. I finally choose a Rhyncattleanthe Varut Feastful. 

Rhyncattleanthe Varut Feastful syn. Potinara Varut Feastful.

The stalls that lined part of Persiaran Tasik at Shah Alam.

If the nothogenus Rhyncattleanthe seems a little odd to you, it is formed when the Cattleya alliance was reshuffled after considering DNA studies on members of the family. Previously, it is known as Potinara Varut Feastful (and still remains a valid synonym under the orchid registry). Among local nurseries, this plant suffers a severe genus confusion, and I have seen it sold as Laeliocattleya (Lc.) or Sophrolaeliocattleya (Slc.). Some people have it labelled as Brassolaeliocattleya Varut Feastfull. A search in the RHS Orchid Registry at this point of time would reveal that there is only one Varut Feastful, a Rhyncattleanthe Varut Feastful.

Now back to Rhyncattleanthe Varut Feastful, the nothogenus Rhyncattleanthe is made up from Rhyncholaelia, Cattleya and Guarianthe and abbreviated Rth. The flower is one of the 'splash type' Cattleyas and it emits a lemony spicy scent (reminiscent of the scent emitted by Phalaenopsis bellina, but 'spicier') in the morning and the scent is undetectable at night.

Sitting in a bowl atop a cabinet - Rth. Varut Feastful enjoying the view of KL skyline.

The light at where the orchid is placed varies from as low as 500 to usually about 1000 - 3000 foot-candles, which is a little low for a Cattleya. So I would have to move the plant out when it has finished blooming. The light conditions are more suitable for a Phalaenopsis, but I just can't stand one of those splotchy coloured Phalaenopsis. I also got another slab of Neofinetia falcata, as I like the jasmine scent that the flowers emits in the evening and at night.

Added another slab of N. falcata to the balcony. The plant that I got during the 18th Shah Alam Orchid Festival is in the background.

I had parked on the other side of Tasik Permai (Permai Lake), so on the way back to my car, I took some photos of the storks (painted storks?) nesting and roosting on the tall Casuarina trees lining the lake. I wonder if anyone has ever gotten pooped on by a stork/egret/crane when looking up at their roosting site, though I am not too keen to hang around and find out through first hand experience myself.

Nesting storks at Tasik Permai Shah Alam.

Dischidia astephana at Genting Highlands

Dischidia astephana is found in Malaysia, usually at higher elevations on Leptospermum trees. It is one of the 'ant-plants', where a mutualism relationship is assumed for the plant and the ant. I spotted the Dischidia on the ground, on broken twigs when I was showing people some Nepenthes of Genting Highlands at elevation of around 1405m above sea level.

The warty leaves of Dischidia astephana. The blue arrow points to a cluster of flowers that I didn't notice at the time of taking the photo.

There were no longer any ants associated with the Dischidia for this specimen as the twig had fallen to the ground. The warty bullate leaves and the closeness of the leaves (imbricated leaves) seems to point to D. astephana. Leaves that were exposed to sun turn a pinkish red colour.

Reddish pink leaves of Dischidia astephana that has been exposed to strong sunlight.

As I did not spot any flowers when I first saw the plant, I half-heartedly snapped a few photos (hmm, cannot ID so no point to take photo). Only when I got back and reviewed the picture did I noticed that there were flowers on the plant. You can just see the red/crimson buds at the bottom of the picture, out of the plane of focus. So it has got to be D. astephana. 

Dischidia astephana - note the reddish crimson flower at the bottom center of the picture (highlighted). The leaves that were exposed to strong sunlight take on a pinkish red colour.

It is quite a cool ant-plant, though they are said to only grow well when associated with the ants (Crematogaster). J.S. Weir & R. Kiew believed that the plant actually wins it all, i.e. it is not a mutualistic relationship, but a 'I win it all' relationship for the Dischidia with the host tree and the ants.