Dine in at Chinese restaurants, and you might find that these sesame seed-coated balls as your dessert. These are called buchi.
What Is Buchi
Buchi is a chewy snack made of fried glutinous rice flour and a sweet red bean paste (monggo) filling. This rice cake has Chinese origins but is also popular in the Philippines. It's delightfully chewy with a deliciously sweet filling and is a great snack!
How To Serve Buchi
These fried, chewy sesame rice dumplings are addictive balls and it's best served as is. It's fantastic served while still warm so the inside is still warm, gooey, and delicious. The rice balls are also good once cooled down and will remain chewy and sticky, even when cold.
How To Make Buchi
Buchi starts with making the red bean paste. This is made with red monggo or red mung beans that are simmered in water until tender. These beans are mashed and sweetened with sugar. This is cooled to become a paste that you'll stuff into the sticky rice flour dough.
The rice flour dough is made with glutinous rice flour mixed with hot sweetened syrup to create a dough that is sweet. This ensures every bite is a sweetened one. Flattened balls of the dough and add dollops of the red bean paste to the center. Fold over the sides and twist the top to seal in the sweet bean filling.
Once sealed up, roll these balls in raw sesame seeds to completely cover the outside. Deep fry these balls until puffed and golden brown. Make sure these are drained well of oil to avoid them becoming oily.
Tips To Make Delicious Buchi
1 Use prepared sweetened red beans.
You might have a jar of sweetened red beans already from making halo halo and these would be perfect for mashing and making into the red bean paste that you'll use for the filling of these buchi. That makes these sesame balls one step easier to make!
2 Don't make the balls too thick or add too much filling.
You might be tempted to not only stuff these balls with more filling than they can handle. You might also not flatten the ball enough to make the buchi thin enough to fry evenly before it's too brown or worse, burnt. Temper your enthusiasm so you use just enough filling and flatten the balls thin enough to no tear when wrapping the dough around the filling.
How To Store Buchi
Buchi are easy to store since once these are fried, you just need to store these in covered containers. If you want to store these before being fried, these can also be up together at a later date, each component stored separately. Refrigerate the components with plastic wrap pressed against the surface to avoid a film forming on the surface of the dough or the bean paste as well as minimize the development of mold. Make and cook the buchi within one week and store for up to one week after being cooked.