Baozi Xishi's Struggle

Chapter 289 Watching the fried sesame balls like a magic trick

Jiandui, also known as sesame balls or sesame balls, are made by mixing glutinous rice flour and sugar into a dough, coating it with sesame seeds, and frying it into hollow sesame balls. Although it looks simple, it is easy to fail if the proportions are not mastered well.

In order to weigh accurately, Shen Yu took two bowls of the same size.

Fill a flat bowl with glutinous rice flour and pour it into a basin. Use another bowl to fill half a bowl of warm water, add 30% of sugar, and stir thoroughly with bamboo chopsticks to dissolve the sugar.

Pour the dissolved sugar water into the glutinous rice flour, and use the cutting and mixing method to knead the glutinous rice flour into a ball, trying to make it into a harder dough.

Less water will allow the fried dough to maintain its round shape and have a crispy outer skin after frying.

Knead the dough into a long strip, divide it into 16 pieces and roll them into balls.

Divide the prepared red bean paste into small portions and roll them into balls.

Shen Yu took another bowl and filled it with half a bowl of white sesame seeds and a bowl of cold water, and began to wrap the stuffing.

Dip your hands in some cold water and gently flatten the glutinous rice dough into the shape of a small bowl.

Put the bean paste filling on it and push it up slowly like making glutinous rice balls until the bean paste filling is wrapped in it. Dip it in some water, roll it into a round shape and seal it.

When everything is done, dip them one by one in cold water, then roll them in a bowl of white sesame seeds, trying to coat them evenly with the white sesame seeds.

Shen Wen rubbed the glutinous rice ball covered with white sesame seeds with her hands a little harder to ensure that the white sesame seeds stuck more firmly to the glutinous rice ball.

After finishing all this, Shen Yu lifted the cloth towel covering the honey twist dough. The dough had already risen and had become much larger.

Shen Yu pressed it with his hand and found the dough was soft and light, ready to be fried.

Because the dough balls will expand a lot when fried, if you use a round-bottomed thick frying pan, you can't fry many at a time.

Shen Yu went to the kitchen next door and brought over a large flat-bottomed soup pot so that he could fry all sixteen fried dough balls at once.

Light the stove, close the door halfway, and keep it on low heat the whole time.

Place the soup pot on the stove, pour vegetable oil into the pot, grab a small piece of dough and put it into the oil. When you see small bubbles start to appear around the dough, you can take out the dough to test the oil temperature and start frying the dough balls.

While Shen Yu was doing this, Zhou Dalang and Yutao were busy making cakes beside him.

Although Shen Yu didn't need their help, the two of them kept an eye on Shen Yu while making pancakes.

I was looking forward to what Shen Yu said, that a small ball of glutinous rice could be fried into a large hollow ball.

Seeing Shen Yu start to fry the dough balls, Yutao stopped what she was doing and called Zhou Dalang over to watch. The two of them gathered beside the pot with curiosity, waiting for Shen Yu to fry the big round balls.

Shen Yu put sixteen glutinous rice balls into the pot and gently stirred them with a colander to allow them to be fully heated.

Yutao originally thought that the small glutinous rice balls would turn into big round balls once they were put into the pot, but after watching for a while, the glutinous rice balls did not change at all.

Yu Tao said worriedly, "Sister, why hasn't it gotten bigger at all? Is it bad?"

Shen Yu patiently moved the glutinous rice ball and said with a smile: "This will take a while, it won't be that fast."

"The oil in the pan was not hot, and the glutinous rice balls were cold, so how could they suddenly expand like a candy man?"

As he was talking, Zhou Dalang next to him said in surprise: "Hey, hey, it's really getting bigger, Miss Yutao, look, the one in the middle."

Yutao looked carefully and found that as the colander was moved, the originally small glutinous rice balls floated up from the bottom of the pot one by one and began to grow larger.

Seeing that the glutinous rice balls had floated up, Shen Yu stopped moving them and instead pressed them down and started spinning them in circles.

Zhou Dalang didn't understand and asked, "Girl, why do you keep spinning the colander to make the balls spin?"

"Can't you just leave it in the oil and let it fry slowly? When you turn it like this, many sesame seeds will fall off the glutinous rice ball."

Shen Yu kept moving his hands as he explained to the two of them, "Pressing it in circles allows every side to be fried, so that it can expand and become big and round."

"During the frying process, it is inevitable that the sesame seeds will fall off. Even if you don't move them, some will fall off."

"But it doesn't matter. Add some white sesame seeds to the oil and it will be more fragrant. It will also be delicious when you cook with it later."

As a few people were talking, they saw the balls in the pot growing bigger and bigger, several times larger than the glutinous rice balls at the beginning, floating on the surface of the oil, a pot of round balls crowded together.

Shen Yu patiently turned the colander in circles. When he saw that the larger balls had been fried until the surface turned light yellow, he scooped one up and tapped it gently with a bamboo chopstick.

The surface of the fried dough has become hard, just fry it a little more and it's ready to be served.

After a brief pause, Shen Yu took out the large sesame balls with a light golden surface, drained the oil and placed them on a tray.

Yu Tao asked, "Sister, the color is still a little light. The color of fried meat skewers is usually darker.

Shen Yu smiled and said, "The glutinous rice and sesame seeds have a light base color. After they are taken out, they are still very hot and will continue to darken. After a while, they will turn into golden yellow."

"If the color looks just right in the frying pan, it will be a little overcooked when it's out of the pan."

Yu Tao nodded and said with a smile, "It's like a magic trick. I didn't expect it to be fried so big, round and sweet. I wonder what it tastes like."

Shen Yu put the tray away, put the dough for the egg crisps and small twists into the frying pan, and said with a smile: "Little greedy cat, I knew you would think about this."

"This pot contains sixteen pieces. We can't put so many in it for Old Madam Song. This kind of snack is made of sugar and oil. It will be greasy if you eat too much."

"When they are cold, take six and put them aside so that mother and the others can have a taste. Don't forget to leave one for Yucheng and Dundun."

"A jiandui is this big, half of it is enough for each person to try."

"In two days, we will also sell fried dough sticks and fried dough twists in our store. In winter, eating fried food can fill you up and keep you from getting hungry. You can eat as much as you want."

Yu Tao heard this and said with a smile: "Sister is the best. Whenever she makes something new, she always thinks of letting us try it first."

"I feel like since I came to the county, I've eaten a lot of delicious food with my sister."

"Yucheng laughed at me at dinner yesterday, saying that if I continued to eat like this, I would become a little fat boy sooner or later."

Shen Yu looked at Yu Tao and said with a smile: "You haven't gained weight at all, you have just grown taller. It's the time to grow up, so you need to eat well."

"When you stop growing in a few years, you really need to be careful not to become a fat kid."

Yutao nodded, took a soup plate, picked up six fried dumplings and put them aside.

After putting the plates away, Yu Tao said, "Sister, it's getting late, shouldn't we start cooking? I'll fry the fried dough twists."