Recently, I sat at Maxwell Food Centre, Singapore waiting for an appointment, and saw this stall called 日兴香记 (Ri4 Xing4 Xiang1 Ji4) selling what they called "sweet potato balls" or dumplings. I wondered if it would be anything like the Japanese sweet potato balls, just maybe deep-fried... and after seeing people line up to make bulk purchases, I thought I would try them - specifically one with pandan coconut filling and another with salty bean paste filling.
Anyway, obviously, these were completely different from the Japanese concept of "sweet potato balls"... they used sweet potato flour to create a mochi-like pastry which they then deep-fried.
What resulted was an extremely crispy fried shell covering a soft, but firm and chewy, mochi-textured dumpling skin. I've noticed that non-wheat flours like this sweet potato flour, or the Japanese mochi flours, do very well with getting crispy when deep fried or baked. One example would be the taiyaki pancake of the Tai Parfait that I mentioned. Another would be the fried oyster and egg dish which is popular both in Taiwan and Singapore - the cook adds quite a bit of what I think is corn starch to the mixture when frying the dish, and that turns into these really crispy strips which enhance the texture of the dish.
The fillings were also good, with the salted bean filling very smooth and savoury, and the pandan coconut very fragrant and sweet.
While the bean paste (right in the picture below) looked pretty natural
and standard, I thought the pandan coconut filling (left) looked rather
artificially greened. Not that I minded though... I thought it gave the otherwise pale yellow dumpling a pop of colour.
In the picture above, you can also see the somewhat translucent, mochi-like nature of the dumpling ball itself.
The overall effect is like desserts comprising mochi with sweet condiments, somewhat like warabi mochi with kinako or matcha powder, or kuromitsu... or mochi with red bean paste. Except that in this case, the mochi is very crispy (a huge plus), and the fillings are Singaporean. And I love it that we have a local answer to those lovely Japanese desserts!
At just 70 cents each, it's not wonder these are such a popular snack!
Anyway, obviously, these were completely different from the Japanese concept of "sweet potato balls"... they used sweet potato flour to create a mochi-like pastry which they then deep-fried.
The fillings were also good, with the salted bean filling very smooth and savoury, and the pandan coconut very fragrant and sweet.
In the picture above, you can also see the somewhat translucent, mochi-like nature of the dumpling ball itself.
The overall effect is like desserts comprising mochi with sweet condiments, somewhat like warabi mochi with kinako or matcha powder, or kuromitsu... or mochi with red bean paste. Except that in this case, the mochi is very crispy (a huge plus), and the fillings are Singaporean. And I love it that we have a local answer to those lovely Japanese desserts!
At just 70 cents each, it's not wonder these are such a popular snack!
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