What's up everyone?
Today, we're making Sweet Sesame Tong Jyun.
If you’ve never had these before, you are missing out.
This is one of the most heartwarming desserts,
a perfect bite of the chewiest sticky rice ball on the outside
and the crunchiest filling, mixed with sesame, peanut butter,
and other surprising ingredients on the inside.
My dad’s recipe is simple,
as long as you can overcome some common problems,
starting with the biggest one of all -
how to create dough that doesn’t crack
or break apart when we cook the balls later.
Hello, friends!
To make today's dish,
we're using 10 oz of glutinous rice flour.
We're going to first make the dough.
Using glutinous rice flour is very important here,
because it gives the balls the signature chewy texture.
We're starting off with 5 oz of boiling water.
Mix it together with the flour.
Slowly add the water while mixing it in.
Don't dump all the water in at once.
My dad is using boiling water here first,
because it’ll make it easier to knead the dough later.
Pour the rest of the water in, that's 5 oz.
It's all in.
A lot of people had questions about flour.
Because the tong jyun is soft and chewy,
if you use a different flour, you won't get that.
For tong jyun, you always use glutinous rice flour.
We'll also add cold water.
3-4 oz of cold water, on this side.
Slowly.
Sometimes the flour is drier and will soak up more water,
some don't take in as much water.
If you feel like there's not enough water, then you can add more.
You can see, there's clearly not enough water.
Let's add another oz of cold water.
Mix it in.
That looks okay.
When the air is dry, the flour will be dry, too. It changes.
The flour is different between brands, too.
How do you prevent this from being too chewy?
Tong jyun is made from glutinous rice flour, so it's going to be chewy.
Unless you use regular rice flour.
I guess you could try half regular rice flour, half glutinous rice flour.
I've never tried it, but if I wanted to make it less chewy,
I'd put 80% glutinous rice flour,
20% of the regular rice flour.
That'll help reduce the chewiness.
Is it hydrated enough now?
Yes, just about.
It's enough now, it looks great.
Now, cover it with plastic wrap.
Let the flour absorb all of the water.
Set it aside for about half an hour.
It could sit for as long as an hour, that's fine too.
While the dough is resting,
let’s talk about why this dish is so important within Chinese culture.
Sweet glutinous rice balls,
or tim tong jyun 甜湯圓 in Cantonese,
are traditionally eaten during family gatherings
including the Winter Solstice Festival
which is when Toisanese people eat
the signature savory version of the rice balls.
But it’s also enjoyed during the Lunar New Year,
specifically the 15th day of the Chinese New Year
which is also called the Lantern Festival,
or jyun siu zit 元宵節 in Cantonese.
The perfect roundness of tong jyun
symbolizes family union and togetherness
which is fitting for the final day of traditional new year celebrations.
Nowadays, sweet tong jyun are
a wildly popular dessert all over the world
and savored year-round for its chewy outside
and of course, its succulent fillings,
which we’ll start to create right now
with some ingredients you might be surprised to see.
Now, we're going to make the filling.
This is going to be a sesame paste filling.
This is butter.
First, I'm going to use the microwave
to melt it, for about 30 seconds.
We’re using 1 tbsp of unsalted butter here.
We're using 2 tbsp of black sesame powder
and 1 tbsp of desiccated coconut.
Pour it all into the butter.
Also, 2 tbsp of peanut butter.
This is honey, we're using 2 tbsp.
Mix it all up.
We have all of these ingredients listed on our blog at madewithlau.com
along with step-by-step instructions and video clips
to guide you as you make the recipe at home.
It's all mixed up now.
Now, take plastic wrap,
lay it flat.
Put the filling down on it.
Now, we're going to press it into a thin layer.
It'll cool down and firm up faster when it's thin.
Later, we're making little balls out of it, right?
Put it down and press it flat.
How thin is it?
Not quite 1/2 an inch thick.
All right, that looks good.
Put it in the freezer.
After half an hour, it'll be firm enough to cut into pieces.
Now, we're going to make the sweet soup.
12 oz of soup.
It'll be enough to feed a lot of people.
These are going to be big bowls.
I'm adding 4 tbsp of sugar.
If you're eating it, and it's not sweet enough, you can add more sugar anytime.
This is creamer for making coffee.
You just need to boil it.
We’ll use 2 tbsp of coffee creamer here.
Of course, you can also substitute milk.
About 3-4 oz of milk.
If you want a stronger milk flavor, you could add more.
This color looks good.
It'll melt once we cook it.
Now that we have all three of our elements ready,
my dad’s going to show us his simple technique to roll balls
that won’t leak or crack when cooked,
starting with the filling we put in the freezer.
The filling is firm enough now.
Let's work with the filling first.
We're cutting it up.
It's not too hard.
We’ll cut the block up first length-wise into a couple rows
then cut across the rows
to make roughly 1/2 inch squares of filling.
All right, just like this.
Here's a piece!
Roll it up, now it's a ball, see?
What if you chill it for too long?
If you've chilled it for too long and you can't roll it out,
then let it thaw and it'll be soft enough to work with.
It's very easy.
We’ll repeat the rolling
until all of the filling pieces are formed into balls,
then we’ll move onto the dough that’s been sitting and waiting for us.
Now, we're going to make the tong jyun.
We can make about 18 tong jyun from this.
We’ll separate the dough into 2 for easier handling.
Then we’ll roll it out into a smaller tube.
Make a round log, then cut it up.
About this big of a piece.
We’ll cut the dough into about 1-2 inch pieces.
Then roll those into rough balls.
After you've made a ball,
press into it, make a deep well.
It's like a little bowl shape.
Put the filling in.
Just like that.
Pinch it closed.
It's a ball! See?
Now we’ll repeat this process
until all the fillings have been
placed into dough balls and rolled up.
I also wanted to make a special shoutout to thank all of our
wonderful Patreon supporters for helping bring this video to life.
If you enjoy our videos and are interested in supporting us directly,
head on over to patreon.com/madewithlau to learn more!
Now let’s see how easy this really is.
Do you want to make one?
Okay!
You make this one.
Yeah. Yeah!
That's it! Smart boy!
That's it.
Put it in, pinch it closed.
Yeah!
Isn't it easy?
It's easy.
That's it. It's good.
And that's it.
Yes, it really is that simple.
Now, we’ll get to cooking them,
which is also pretty simple,
as long as you keep these few things in mind.
All right, we've made the tong jyun.
We're going to cook them now.
Turn the stove on.
When you cook tong jyun, the water has to be at a rolling boil.
All right, the water is boiling.
Put the tong jyun in.
We’ll carefully put the balls into the boiling water one by one.
Turn the heat down a bit.
You can also use a spoon to gently put them in.
The tong jyun has to be completely submerged in the water.
Remember that.
Put the lid on.
With the heat on medium,
we’ll cover the pot to bring the water back to a boil,
or about 30-40 seconds.
Move them around a bit.
Don't let them sink and stick to the bottom.
We're going to get a bowl of cold water ready nearby.
When they're cooked, we'll scoop them over and shock them cold.
My dad uses the lid to make them cook faster
but be careful not to let it boil over.
You can lower the heat and stir more frequently if necessary.
See? They're starting to float up.
When they start to float,
or after about 5 minutes of cooking, the tong jyun are done.
My dad adds a bit of cold water here
to quickly lower the water’s temperature
and prevent the boiling water
from breaking apart the already-cooked balls.
All right, turn the stove off.
Now, an important step, we’ll place them in the bowl of cold water.
This seems simple,
but my mom’s gonna explain why it’s so critical.
But first...
A big part of why I started this channel
was to improve my Chinese.
My fluency, or lack thereof,
has always been one of my biggest insecurities,
but now that I'm a dad,
I feel even more of a sense of urgency and responsibility
in passing down the language.
If you're an ABC like me, maybe you can relate to this,
but as a Cantonese-only speaker,
there's an additional divide that I feel not knowing Mandarin,
and there really aren't a ton of
accessible, quality resources out there to improve.
Luckily, I connected with the guys at Canto Mando,
who certainly don't need any introductions,
but they've been making extremely engaging, entertaining videos
on YouTube for years.
They recently came out with a language course
called “The Canto to Mando Blueprint”,
designed specifically for Cantonese speakers like me
to get us speaking conversationally fluent Mandarin super fast,
regardless of whatever level of Cantonese we’re at.
A big part of learning is creating bridges between
what you do know and what you don’t know,
and the Canto to Mando Blueprint is genius
in that it leverages our Cantonese background to learn Mandarin.
And I can attest that, having gone through their Basics lessons,
using my Cantonese as a bridge to learn
is significantly easier than trying to learn Mandarin with English.
For me, learning Mandarin has always been intimidating,
but going through this course gives me confidence, that I can master it
and that I actually already know more than I thought I did.
And I think most importantly,
this course is very tactical and action-oriented,
and it’s a course that you’ll actually want to finish.
I’ve bought A LOT of online courses,
and honestly they can be pretty hit or miss.
But, if you’ve seen any of Canto Mando’s YouTube videos,
you’ll know that they are masters of creating
fun, engaging content that you’ll wanna watch to the end,
and they bring that same energy
throughout a very unique approach to language learning,
which traditionally can be pretty boring.
I’m just genuinely excited that this course exists
and even more excited to share it with you guys.
So, if this sounds like something you’d be interested in,
I have a link in our description where you can learn all about it.
Next, we’ll get back to why it’s so critical
to first dunk the balls into cold water.
The most important step to keep them from sticking together
is the cold water bath.
When you take something very soft, and put it in cold water,
then it automatically shrinks.
They become harder and they don't stick together.
Also, the cold water bath prevents the sweet soup from getting milky.
It washes the outside, the surface of the tong jyun.
What's the best way to freeze them?
And also to prevent them from cracking if you freeze them?
You have to seal them really well.
If they're not tightly sealed,
the freezer will make them crack from drying out the moisture inside.
How do you thaw them later?
You could thaw them,
or you could cook them directly without thawing them.
Would they not taste as good?
Shouldn't make a big difference.
It's better to thaw them a bit first.
If you don't defrost them completely,
then put them in when the water's almost boiling,
but not when it's a strong, rolling boil.
The difference in temperature.
All right.
Now, we're going to pour this water out,
and cook the soup.
We already made the sweet soup earlier,
with the milk and everything.
It has honey and everything in it.
High heat.
We're going to add some shredded ginger.
They'll add another aromatic flavor to the sweet soup.
Just a few pieces.
My dad didn’t show this,
but we'll need to chop up about 1-2 oz of ginger
into small strips to add to our soup.
This is optional of course,
but highly recommended to make the soup more aromatic.
Audrey from Patreon said,
"My family always made the broth with just ginger.
I'm wondering what other variations there are."
You can add milk, or some coconut milk.
You could have it in sweet red bean soup, too.
Tong jyun is white, right?
We want the soup to also be white.
That's why we put milk.
If you don't mind, you can have it in any soup that's sweet.
But soup with ginger and brown sugar is really, really common.
It's boiling.
Once the soup boils,
we’ll turn off the heat to give it a taste.
This is when you could add more sugar, water, or milk to your liking.
Tastes amazing.
A little bit of ginger flavor.
All right, we just need to put the tong jyun in.
We’ll turn the heat back on
to warm up the tong jyun for just 30 seconds.
That's all. It doesn't need to boil completely.
Then we’re ready to take it back out.
We’ll pour the hot soup over our amazing new creations
and serve them to our eagerly awaiting family
before they turn cold.
But first, let’s learn a Chinese saying about family from my mom.
I hope our audience brings this out to the table
indicating a family that's together and whole.
Always united together,
All the new year with happiness.
Tyun tyun jyun jyun means all together.
Sweet Sesame Tong Jyun is complete!
I hope everyone enjoys!
Cheers!
Happy Lantern Festival!
Very good!
Do you like it better than the savory one?
This is good!
YouTube thinks you’ll like this recipe next.
Let's see if they're right.