Piggy Tangyuan

Pour glutinous rice flour into a clean container, then add lactone tofu.

Knead the mixture into a dough using your hands. * The dough made with lactone tofu forms better, remains intact after cooking, has a bouncier texture, and retains a tofu fragrance.

Divide the dough into small portions of 15g each. * I didn’t count the exact number, but I initially made 30–40 portions, with the remaining dough set aside under plastic wrap for shaping ears and noses.

Pre-portion the red bean paste into 5g servings if desired.

Take a glutinous rice ball and wrap it around 5g of bean paste filling.

Seal the opening and pinch tightly to close.

Roll the ball with your hands to make it round.

Shape into an oval and place in a spoon. You can sprinkle some potato starch in the spoon first to prevent sticking. * Placing them in spoons helps keep their shape when adding ears and other parts later. If you don’t have enough spoons, you can skip this step.

Take a portion of the reserved dough, add a small amount of red yeast powder or food coloring, knead to a pink color, and separate into pieces of 1g or smaller. Shape into ovals, slightly flatten, and place on the lower central part of a large dough ball. Use a toothpick to poke two small holes to form a pig's nose. For ears, use 0.5g portions shaped into triangles and attach them to the head where ears would be, as shown. The dough is sticky enough to adhere without any additional water.

You can cook some portions before continuing. Bring water to a boil, add the dumplings, and cook for about three minutes (longer is fine). Then remove.

After removing from the water, use small tweezers to place black sesame seeds to form the pig’s eyes. Done~