Patron Exclusive Recipe #18 Shanghainese Peanut Mochi (擂沙汤圆/糖不甩)

Hey, guys. Happy weekend!

As Chinese Lunar New Year is approaching, I figured it'll be fun to do some CNY related stuff. So this week, let's do a Shanghaiese Peanut Mochi that's round, cute, and golden color (symbolizes gold, lol). Although it's a dessert originated from Shanghai, this little sweet treat is ubiquitous in Cantonese dessert shops and I thought it's a Cantonese thing all these years until I looked at the Wikipedia page. 

It's called "tang yuan/汤圆" (glutinous rice ball), but served without soup and eaten as mochi. The dough is a bit different than regular tang yuan, it's easier to handle and a bit puffier and al dente. 

So right, let's get started. 

  **Ingredients**  (Make Ten Mochi Balls) 

Filling:

1. Peanut, 20g.

2. Peanut butter, 20g (I used Skippy, smooth type).

3. Granulated sugar, 20g.

• Note on filling: sometimes the filling will contain toasted flour and cool water, but I found it to be a bit too firm for my taste.
  If you want to include that, you can toast 10g of plain flour till it's slightly golden brown, mix in with the filling together with 20g of water, and everything else for the filling should be 10g each in order to make the filling for 10 balls. 

Wrapper:

1. Sticky rice flour, 90g.

2. Rice flour, 10g. 

3. Water, 85g.

4. Gelatin powder, 2g. If using gelatin sheets, swap 10g water out of the 85g water included in the recipe with hot water, and melt the gelatin with it beforehand. Use the same amount of agar-agar if you want it to be vegan (and remember to pre-melt the agar-agar with hot water too, with the same method as melting gelatin sheet).

5. Lard, 2g. Use neutral oil or peanut oil if you want to make it vegan. 

Coating:

Toasted, peeled and ground peanut, 40g (you can have a bit extra to toss on the mochi balls when serving).
You can also use the same amount of toasted and crushed white sesame seeds or other nuts, or a coupe tablespoon of toasted soybean flour (the one often seen in Japanese wagashi.) Or you can be creative and try cocoa powder, matcha powder, coffee powder, milk powder, edible gold flakes, etc. Just remember to do it a little bit at a time as these kinds of powder may be bitter. 

(Toasted peanuts on the left and toasted soybean flour on the right)

  **Process**  

1. Now, let's toast some nuts. Here I'm using peanuts. In a dry wok on medium heat, toss in all the peanuts for this recipe (both the ones for filling and coating), keep stirring till you can obviously smell the nice toasted fragrance and it's nicely brownish and even with some blackened spots on the skin. Then heat off, take it out and let it cool down.
Alternatively, you can roast them in an oven, 175C/350F for about 10 minutes, stirring once or twice during roasting. You can toast it for up to 15 minutes if you find it not brown enough, just be careful. I'm always super tentative when roasting nuts, I've burned some walnuts before, lol.
I forgot to take a picture of the wok toasting process but we'll be posting a recipe of Yibin burning noodle this week and we'll have visual for toasting peanuts. If you are not sure what to look for, you can check it out in the video. I'll update the video link here once it's out.

2. Once the peanuts are cool to touch, rub them with your hands and the peels should come off with no effort. Once they're all off, very gently blow at the peels and let them fall back into the dry wok. Collecting the peels in a dry wok is the easiest, and if you blow the peels into the sink, then they may stick with the moisture and make a mess.
Again, we have the footage in the video, sorry that I can only link it here after the video is out. 

3. Now the peanut is toasted and peel. Put them in a plastic bag and roll them into fine bits using a rolling pin, like the picture shown below. Then separate out the amount for filling and the one for coating.

4. Let's mix the filling. This step is very simple, just fold the 20g crushed peanuts, sugar and peanut butter together with a rubber spatula till everything is mixed. Set aside.

(There are sesame seeds in because we happen to have some around, and why not?)

5. Now let's make the wrapper. First, mix the sticky rice flour and rice flour together in a bigger bowl, stir well. Take out 20g of the mixed flour and put it in a separate smaller bowl.

(Remember to stir well)

(Take out 20g of flour)

6. Bring a bit of water to a boil, then pour 20g of boiling water to the 20g of mixed flour you just took out. Use a rubber spatula and mix it into a dough ball.

(20g hot boiled water in)

(Mix into a dough ball)

7. Now add the gelatin powder (or melted gelatin), lard (or whatever oil you're using), all the remaining 65g water, and the dough ball we just mixed into the remaining 80g flour, use a rubber spatula to fold everything together and keep folding for a minute to ensure everything is mixed well. I don't recommend using hands as the dough tends to be very sticky during the mixing stage.

(The whole dough is mixed well now)

8. Now that we have the dough ready, roll it into a log and portion it into 10 roughly the same size pieces. 

9. Take one piece of the dough, press and shape it into a disc-ish shape, weigh 5-6g or the filling, put it in the center, fold up the sides, gently pinch and roll it into a ball. This dough is pretty elastic and it's easier to wrap and roll than tang yuan balls. Generally, like what we did in the Tang Yuan video, but these are much easier to wrap.

10. Repeat, and finish the 10 balls. Cover the done ones with a damp towel if you're making a bigger batch to prevent drying out.

11. After the balls are done, gently put them into simmering water, let it simmer for at least 5-6 minutes, add in some room temperature water once during the boiling.

(Adding room-temp water once)

12. About 5 minutes later, all the mochi balls should be floating. Turn off the heat, scoop out one with a strainer, drain it dry a bit, then toss it into the bowl with the coating. Then roll that ball in the bowl, let the peanut (or crushed sesame, soybean flour, or other kinds of powder) stick on the wet surface).

(Roll the mochi ball in the crushed peanut one by one)

13. Repeat and finish them all with the same process. Don't toss them in all at one go, otherwise, it'll be too wet and difficult to get it even.

14, Now that your mochi balls are done, you can serve it right away, it tastes the best when freshly made. But it's also good at room temperature. And you can store it in an air-tight container, room temp for 1 day or fridge for up to 2 days. It'll be a bit firmer after it cools down, but still tasty. I wish I made more, lol.

• Make-ahead tips: You can make a bigger batch, store it as what we did in the Tang Yuan video. After it firmed up in the freezer, you can transfer them into a zip-lock bag and keep freezing it. Not need to thaw, just prepare them directly as Step 11-13. 

This makes a great snack or dessert for Chinese New Year as they have the most auspicious golden color from the peanut coating, and they're adorable, won't fill you up too much, and quite easy to make. 

So right, hope you give a try. Next week, we'll be making Cantonese sweet rice cake that's basically only eaten during Lunar New year.