What’d You Do Last Weekend?
Make your own bitters.
Jian Duy
I don’t really know the name of this thing – the name I gave it is as close to phonetically correct as I could get, and I don’t speak Chinese. Maybe it’s better if I describe what they are, and why I wanted to learn to make them.
On the dim sum carts, you’ll see fried sesame balls, and sometimes other deep-fried pastries filled with pork and black mushrooms. The outsides are crispy, but the dough is chewy, almost akin to mochi, if you know what that is. Well this pastry uses the same dough and it’s deep-fried too, but instead of being filled with red bean or lotus seed or meat, it’s actually hollow and inflated like a balloon before it’s fried. When it actually hits the hot oil, the air trapped inside expands and it inflates, thinning the walls of the pastry to form a still-chewy but not-so-gummy structure.
Why these pastries? Well, a couple of reasons. I grew up in Texas, and we didn’t have really authentic Chinese food even though my grandparents ran the only Chinese place in town for 25 years. On the rare occasions that we celebrated something like a wedding or Chinese New Year, sometimes my grandmother would pull out a really authentic thing from her bag of tricks to go along with the standard beef and broccoli that was the only thing my little brother would eat. This was one of those things. She made them once in my life, and I’ve never forgotten them.
Another reason can be best explained by the argument that I had trying to convince her to teach me how to make these:
Me: But you’ve only ever made them once, wouldn’t it be fun to try them again?
Her: No, nobody makes these things anymore, they’re old things. Why would you want to make them?
Me: That’s the reason why I should learn – because nobody makes them anymore.
Her: Well, you could always go to dim sum and get the ones with sesame. You like those. Me: Yes, but I can’t go anywhere to get these things.
Her: That’s right, because people don’t make them anymore. So why would you want them?
The conversation progressed as such. Needless to say, I convinced her in the end, and then I threw her a curveball. My friend Emma and her mom Marie wanted to learn too. Marie is from Hong Kong and she knew exactly what these were and knew it’s impossible to find them anymore. Emma and I went to pastry school together and we took it upon ourselves to learn how to do this so it wouldn’t be forgotten. And I kept telling my grandmother, all she had to do was show us once and we would figure out how to apply the skills we already had to make these things.
When the day came, I was sure she would get cold feet. She had, after all, only made these once in the last 30 years. Her sister was always better at these things. And most of all, she didn’t want to lose face in front of another Chinese person. I persevered. As we walked into Emma’s house, my grandmother told me that the reason these were only done at special events was because they were supposed to symbolize good luck, and it would be terribly unlucky to make pastry that didn’t inflate. Years of bad luck, I’d been warned.
With the tone set and expectations appropriately lowered, we took to the task at hand. I had promised her that she only had to do one, and I was going to stick with it. She talked the whole time she was forming this little purse made of dough, fretting that it wouldn’t inflate, worrying that the oil would be too hot, too cold, or too old. Needless to say, she was beaming when the ball puffed up and smoothed out any rough edges that she’d left behind. Emma, Marie, and I seized upon the remaining dough with my mom documenting the whole thing, hobbling on a bum leg. Not one failed to inflate.
We ended the day around their table, snacking on chen duy and drinking hot tea, laughing about how we’d spent the day.
Jian Duy
1/2 package glutinous rice flour
1/3 c water
2 sticks ‘brown candy’ (raw Chinese sugar)
1 c water
1 tsp granulated sugar
Hot oil for frying
- Put the rice flour in a medium bowl and ‘divide’ into quarters (use your fingers to mark the flour into 4 quarters).
- Take out 1/4 of the rice flour and mix it with ~1/3 c water – enough that it comes together but is still very sticky. Set aside.
- In a saucepan, combine ~1 c water with the 2 sticks of brown candy. Boil until dissolved completely.
- Using your fingers, pull the sticky dough into little strips and poach them in the dissolved sugar water. Cook them for 5 – 7 minutes.
- Meanwhile, add 1 tsp granulated sugar to the remaining rice flour and stir to combine.
- Add the cooked and sugared dough to the dry ingredients and use your hands to combine. Add the remaining sugar syrup to bring the dough together. If you think you’re going to need more water, add water to the syrup and mix it lightly before continuing to add it to the dough (make sure you’re not adding plain water to the dough).
The resulting dough should be fairly dry but pliable. You can add a little water if it’s too dry. Cover with a moist towel for the rest of the steps. - Shape the dough.
- Take a small ball of dough and shape it into a little bowl.
- Try hard to keep the thickness of the dough consistent.
- Gather the sides of the bowl to create a purse or balloon shape. Blow into it and pinch it shut immediately. Remove the excess dough. - Fry the ball in hot oil until golden brown. You can push the ball down into the hot oil (which will make it look like it’s deflating), but it will re-inflate unless you puncture the dough. Turn frequently – you should be able to tell which side of your balloon has thicker walls, because the ball will try to settle in the oil onto that side. You have to keep turning it or basting it with hot oil.
More Info
Here's an excellent variation of Chinese sesame balls on Dessert First
