The Sweet, Chewy Dessert I Make Every Lunar New Year

A popular snack all over China, glutinous rice balls, or tang yuan, are filled with red bean, sesame, peanut, and other sweet fillings that ooze out from mochi-like dumplings skins. The dumpling skins owe their pleasantly gummy texture to glutinous rice flour, which produces a chewier dough.

You'll find packets of frozen tang yuan at most Chinese supermarkets, and these days the fillings not only come in the standard assortment, but have branched out into fancy-sounding ones like "sweet osmanthanus" and "chestnut and sesame seeds." Why then, take the trouble of making your own at home?

Why not? The dough for tang yuan is a simple combination of glutinous rice flour, regular rice flour, and water. Once you get the hang of enclosing the dough around nuggets of sweet filling, you'll find that making your own tang yuan takes no more than half an hour.

The best part about making your own is that you can experiment with all kinds of nuts and pastes. The filling is a simple combination of sugar, lard, and a filling of nuts and/or beans. Use ground peanuts or sesame seeds, or experiment with almonds, cashews, and pecans. (To prepare the nuts: roast them, chop them up, and grind them in a mortar and pestle before mixing with lard and sugar.) You could even make your own red bean filling from dried adzuki beans by simmering and boiling them until soft, then sweetening with sugar to taste. Coconut flakes are also a great addition to fillings of any kind. Though lard is traditional and gives the filling a mild savory note, you could substitute with coconut oil or even smoky bacon fat.

Though tang yuan is eaten year-round, they're also popular during Lunar New Year, and my family celebration isn't complete without them. I recommend making large batches of tang yuan and freezing them for a quick breakfast or dessert for yourself or your guests—they're sure to be a hit, regardless of what you fill them with.