Rice balls

February 17th is Chinese Lantern Festival. People eat yuánxiāo dumplings (元宵) to celebrate it, and probably do stuff with lanterns. I would have liked to go out and see some lantern and fireworks action, but wasn't feeling up to it, so someone dropped around with some dumplings to my place.

These have sesame filling, which you can see further below. You can buy a variety of these in the supermarket, perhaps all year round for all I know.

My guest boiled them in a pot, added cold water to cool it, then boiled it again. I presume that's a timing thing to ensure they are cooked, and that it's a pretty standard approach. Interestingly she used tap water, which I would never cook with due to it not being safe.

She overcooked them and the outer rice coating had the texture of chewing gum :-)

They were pretty tasty, but were so rich I could only eat four. The chewy rice coating was not so bad forcing me to eat slowly.

Would consider buying again, but I'm more of a savoury flavouring kind of guy.