"Tang Yuan" aka Glutinous Rice Balls

Today is the day to eat the glutinous ric balls also known as "Tang Yuan Day". I dont have time to make the rice balls myself especially at this stage when I am already 7mths preggie. Couldnt tahan standing too long so I just bought the ready made ones from the supermarket and cooked the soup myself. I bought 2 types of ready made ones, one with filling inside and the other type without.

Ingredients (for 6 pax share):

- 2 packets of glutinous rice balls with fillings
- 1 packet of plain glutinous rice balls (without fillings)
- 1 small ginger (usually used a medium sized but some of my family members do not like the taste of ginger so I just added a small piece to have the "spicy" taste)
- 4 small pieces of coconut sugar
- 2 big tablespoons of white sugar
- 1 pack of pandan leaf
- water

How to cook:

- Cook 1 pot (average sized pot) of water
- When the water is boiled, add in the plain glutinous rice balls.
- When the rice balls float to the top, it means its cooked.
- Use a strainer and sieve it out and put it in a big bowl of water. This big bowl of water must be suitable for consumption and at room-temperature.
- Repeat the same procedure for the glutinous rice balls with fillings.
- Cook an another pot (slightly smaller than the 1st pot) of water.
- Add the pandan leaf and ginger into the water to boil.
- When the water is about half-boiled, add in the coconut sugar.
- Then add in the white sugar when the coconut sugar has dissolved.
- Stir the water for a while and off the fire.
- Finally, sieve the rice balls and add in the soup, and its ready to be served.

PS: If you do not have coconut sugar, you can replace with brown sugar. I personally find white sugar a little bland. Anyway, this recipe is given by my cantonese mother :)