Dong Zhi Festival 2011

Previously, most of the chinese were celebrated the Dong Zhi festival.Actually what's Dong Zhi festival? In English Dong Zhi Festival 冬至 is called as Winter Solstice Festival which most of the chinese will make the glutinous rice ball 汤圆. For my family was also the same, my grandma will celebrate this festival every year and cooked the big meal like reunion dinner.

In the Dong Zhi festival eve, we will sit together and make the glutinous rice ball together. First, my grandma bought the materials from the groceries shop which full of 4 colours. Why 4 colours? According to my grandma, it means that one year we have 4 seasons then some sort like 4 factors. I am not sure and I just roughly get the meaning on that. xD

These are the 4 colours of glutinous balls. They are red, yellow, green and white!

On this blog post, I will show you some steps on making the glutinous rice ball. According to my grandma's steps, she will first let the materials that bought back to be dried a bit by using cooling fan. After that, she will take out the materials and put in a bowl with adding fine sugar to roll on it. What's the purpose there? Actually it's to make the materials turn to be softer and more chewy when you eat.

Roll first with adding sugar inside.

After the process of rolling, she will put the materials on the white cloth to let the excess water being absorbed. Then start with one colour first. My grandma will make the materials into cube and let us to roll it into sphere size. I think I need 1 or 2 minutes to do it as a sphere and completed one glutinous ball. Just repeating those steps above and you can done the glutinous ball.

There we had completed the process of making 4 colours of the glutinous balls. It seems to be so colourful right? It takes about 2 to 3 hours to complete all the glutinous balls. If you have more people to help you, it will turn to be faster. 

After the process of making,we had arranged the glutinous balls according to their colours. Grouping all of them like playing the mix and match games. After grouping them it seems like the colourful wonderland. I like those 4 colours very much because they look nice and not weird.

After completed everything, I put myself in front of the camera and smile to it to show that we had completed making the glutinous balls and prepare to cook for the next day. Since I was 5 years old, I love to eat glutinous balls every year. I was told from my grandma not to eat too much because when we eat once we will grow elder, if then we eat a lot we will grow older. But after I get the knowledge, I just realise that's only the story from the eldest... At last I love it too! I will eat up at least 5 bowls of glutinous balls once a year. xD! Posted by GenYong 25.12.2011