Beijing Rolling Donkeys
驴打滚
You’ll be happy to hear that Rolling Donkeys have nothing to do with donkeys at all. Instead ludagun is a ‘pastry’ from the North, made famous in Beijing. A description of the sweet treat might sound odd to Western palettes: rice and red beans, finished in a dusting of soy powder. But sugar is used only as a seasoning in traditional Chinese cooking, rather than to make deserts. Indeed, for many Chinese, Western cookies, cakes and donuts are far too sweet.
China does not treat ‘sweet’ in the same way. In a meal, sweet dishes will arrive and be eaten at the same time as everything else, which seems particularly odd to Westerners. And then there’s the concept that beans, sweetcorn and even tomatoes are treated as ‘sweet’ in Chinese cooking.
It took me years before I came around to enjoying anything stuffed with red bean paste, but last week I happily ate a red bean mooncake and a red bean mochi. I have indeed become a convert, and ‘Rolling Donkeys’ are another example.
Just be prepared, this might be the stickiest, hardest dough in the world; it seems to stick to anything wooden, so use a plastic rolling pin to avoid extreme frustration.
Serves 4
Ingredients
150g glutinous rice flour
10g granulated sugar
125g hot water
250g red bean paste
4-5 tablespoons cooked soybean powder
Method
Put the flour and sugar into a bowl and mix together.
Add the hot water into the flour mix and keep stirring with chopsticks until it becomes a dough. Bring it altogether with your hands if needed, until it’s a ball.
Brush a heatproof bowl or plate with oil, then push the dough flat in the bowl/plate.
Set the plate/bowl into a steamer, and steam for 15-20 minutes, until firm and cooked.
Sprinkle a layer of soybean powder onto a clean work surface, then place the cooked dough on top. The dough will be annoyingly sticky until the soybean powder sticks to it. Be liberal with the powder, you want the whole outside to be covered in a brown layer.
Roll the dough into a rectangle about half a centimetre thick and wider than it is long.
Pour the red bean paste into a bowl. It can sometimes be too thick, so add a touch of water and mix if needed. Then spread a thick layer across the top-facing side of the dough.
Tightly roll the dough. From the bottom side (nearest you) start to roll it until it’s a long sausage.
Cut into pieces. Using either a hot-bladed knife (run under the hot tap) or thin string, cut the dough into pieces (you’ll probably have about 8-10).
To finish, dust another layer of soybean powder and serve.
