Sweet Potato Balls stuffed with Nian Gao

Hub and the girls are not a fan of the traditional yam and sweet potato sandwich with nian gao, so I have to prepare something different. And I remembered I had made some sweet potato puff balls before and this time, I'll just stuffed it with the sticky cake instead.

This recipe uses tapioca flour instead of glutinous rice flour.

Ingredients:

• 230g sweet potato, steamed (I microwaved with water) and mashed
• 150gram tapioca flour
• 50g rice flour
• 15g corn flour
• 25g sugar
• a pinch of salt
• 2tbsp oil
• 1/4 cup of water
• oil to spray
• nian gao cut to small cube, roughly 1.5cm size, recipe for nian gao is here

Steps:

1. Mix all the ingredients except the sticky cake and knead till it forms a soft dough.
2. Once it is ready, scoop roughly a big tablespoon of it out and flatten it. Put a cube of the sticky cake and wrap it up, shape into a ball.
3. Place the balls in the air fryer and set at 160c for 5mins.
4. Then spray some oil on the balls and shake it around so that it is well coated and AF for another 5mins. Do not stuff too many balls into the basket to avoid them from sticking together.
5. Once ready, take it out to cool but do not stack them up yet as this will deflate the ball.

Nian Gao / Sticky Cake

This CNY, I had prepared something different from the previous year. No pineapple tart this year as I was too lazy to cut, blend and cook the pineapple for long time on the stove top. Not CNY cookies too, other than some Airfried crab stick and seaweed popiah crisps.

This is the special that I had made this year with my kitchen toy, the pressure cooker. Instead of the traditional way of steaming it for 3-4hrs, it now takes only 1hr in the pressure cooker.

Nian gal or the sticky cake is one of the nice stuff sold widely in the market during CNY. However, due to commercialisation, there are lots of "hanky panky" type in the market that I rather hesitate so decided to make it myself. Another reason it is expensive.

I had made two batch and think the second batch one tasted better and looks prettier too (btw the pic is from the first batch which is too pale and too soft). Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 300g glutinous rice flour 
• 200ml water
• 400g golden syrup (ready made from CSR)
• 2tbsp oil
• banana leaf (blanched in hot water to soften it)

Steps:

1. Line the container that you will like to use to steam the nian gao with the banana leaf. I had used the container from the tiffin carrier. Make sure you have sufficient layer to avoid the liquid from spilling out and sticking on the container after steaming. Spray the banana leaf with a layer of oil to make it easier to remove when you need to serve the nian gao.
2. Mix the water with the flour till it is well mix. The mixture will be quite hard as I had reduced the amount of water requested by the recipe. 
3. Now add in the golden syrup into the hard dough mixture and get a little amaze at how it all liquified. The entire mixture will now be a thick liquid. Add in the oil and mix till it is all evenly mix.
4. To avoid any lump, make sure you sieve the mixture.
5. Pour the the mixture into the carrier that you had provided and place it into the pressure cooker.  I'm using the Philips pressure cooker and a stainless steel inner pot. I'm able to fit in two layers of the tiffin carrier into it. If you are not using the stainless steel inner pot, make sure you put a layer of cloth to avoid it from scratching. 
6. Make sure the water level in the inner pot is at least half the level of the tiffin carrier's single layer. Set the pressure cooker to steam and KPT 59mins.
7. Once done, let the valve drop, remove the container out of the pressure cooker. If there is any water that I had drip on the nian gao, make sure u wipe off the water and let it cool. Once cool, let it set in the fridge for at least 2-3days before you remove it from the container.