Chinese like to eat colorful dumplings on the 22nd December each year when it is very close to the Chinese New Year celebration. Legend has it that by eating the dumplings, you become one year older and will have a "rounded" year ahead (meaning a better and happier year). But nowadays you can eat it anytime so long as you know how to do it.
My sisters used to cook the dumplings plain i.e. just with the sugar solution or syrup. They made the dumplings into very small red, green and white. It looks very appetizing. Although the dumplings were plain but with the nicely cooked syrup, they were very tasty.
Nowadays, you can get the ready mixed colorful dumpling dough from the morning market in December.
This peanut dumplings we going to make is without color. I will show you how to use the fruit coloring in the future.
First cook the syrup by boiling the 150g of sugar into 600 ml of water. Add "Pandan" leaves as the flavor enhancer. They will give the syrup a very pleasant smell. When the sugar fully dissolved, pour them into a mixing bowl, discard the pandan leaves.
Pound peanut candy with mortar & pestle (you can get it from Ikea) until they are finely ground. As peanut candy were sweet so it will make the dumplings tastier. Put it aside.
You may keep in a jar for future use. This is the same peanut candy I used it for Apple Salad.
Now mix 200g of glutinous flour with approximately 160ml of warm water. Knead the dough until they are well mixed.
Okay now we are ready to make a dumpling. Simply roll a small piece of dough into a ball shape, then press it flat. Scoop about 1 tsp of peanut onto the middle, wrap the peanut nicely make sure no peanut was spilled onto the outer layer of the dough. If you are skillful enough, add more peanuts. I like it with a lot of peanut filled inside.
So you will continue making quite a lot of peanut dumplings (30-40 pieces) and leave them on a tray. We have to cook them before it turned too dry or it will crack. If you feel the dough is too dry, just put a drop of water on you palm and roll.
Here is how to cook them. Boil a pot of water. When the water started boiling, put in the dumplings one by one. They will sink and when it cooked, it floats. Let it continue cooking for a minute before scooped it out into the sugar syrup.
Transfer a few pieces of dumplings with syrup into a nice bowl and serve.
Try it out, it is yummy.
