sesame balls | GOURMANDE in OSAKA

Let’s continue with the Chinese festivities for Lunar New Year, click here for many ideas).
Now, 芝麻球 , zhimaqiu, pearls with sesame. Hot, golden, crispy, and the inside sweet and melting. Everybody buys them it seems. But they are really quick and simple to make. Also you will know what they are made of.

The inside is boiled azuki beans mixed with sugar (here kurozato black sugar), mashed with a fork.
The dough is made of mochiko, and you can also use shiratamako, both are processed glutinous rice flour. You really need this ingredient, or an equivalent, and not ordinary rice floor. (read here about these rice flours)
Add enough lukewarm water to obtain a sort of playdo.

Then shape the balls and roll them in sesame seeds.

Then fry about 5~8 minutes in oil at about 160 degrees Celsius.

Freshly made. They have to be served hot.
They are not as perfectly round as those you buy, but you’d solve that as doing like they do at the stalls : taking them out of the freezer into the oil. They hold their shape… I don’t think that’s necessary.