FROM WIKIPEDIA: Jian dui is a type of fried Chinese pastry made from glutinous rice flour. The pastry is coated with sesame seeds on the outside and is crisp and chewy. Inside the pastry is a large hollow, caused by the expansion of the dough. The hollow of the pastry is filled with a filling usually consisting of lotus paste (蓮蓉), or alternatively sweet black bean paste (hei dousha, 黑豆沙), or less commonly red bean paste (hong dousha, 紅豆沙).
Depending on the region and cultural area, jian dui are known as matuan (麻糰) in northern China, ma yuan (麻圆) in northeast China, and jen dai (珍袋) in Hainan. In American Chinese restaurants and pastry shops, they are known as Sesame Seed Balls.[1] They are also sometimes referred to as zhimaqiu (芝麻球), which translates to sesame balls in English.[2]
I have fond memories of the pink boxes that Yeh-yeh (my grandfather) would bring home from Chinatown. These pink boxes meant two things......one - we were having company.....and two - there were YUMMY SWEET TREATS to be eaten inside.
Often the treats were still warm, fresh from the bakery. The outside is crispy and slightly nutty tasting. As you bite through the crunch to the slightly chewy doughy insides and finally to the sweet bean filling that always reminded me of peanutbutter.
Now, as an adult, whenever we go for dim sum I always end the yummy meal with a delicious sesame ball (or two) and am immediately whisked back to my grandparents house on California Street with many aunties, uncles and cousins stopping by for a visit. Everyone gathered in the kitchen and the melodious cadences of Cantonese floating about in the air. I couldn't understand what they were saying, but it was family and i was content to sit and look at photographs and eat the yummy jian dui that my yeh-yeh offered to me.
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