Taro ball () is a traditional Taiwanese cuisine dessert made of

taro Taro () (''Colocasia esculenta)'' is a root vegetable. It is the most widely cultivated species of several plants in the family Araceae that are used as vegetables for their corms, leaves, and petioles. Taro corms are a food staple in Africa ...

. It can be found in almost every part of

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

and other parts of the world selling Taiwanese desserts, among which

Jiufen Jiufen, also spelled Jioufen or Chiufen (), is a seaside mountain area in Ruifang District, New Taipei City, Taiwan. History During the first years of the Qing Dynasty, the isolated village housed nine families, thus the village would request "n ...

's taro ball is said to be the most famous. The taro balls can be made by mixing mashed taro with

water Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a ...

and

sweet potato The sweet potato or sweetpotato (''Ipomoea batatas'') is a dicotyledonous plant that belongs to the Convolvulus, bindweed or morning glory family (biology), family, Convolvulaceae. Its large, starchy, sweet-tasting tuberous roots are used as a r ...

flour or

potato The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern Unit ...

flour, making the taro balls more springy or softer respectively. The colour of mashed taro makes the dessert appear crystal purple or grey. The mashed taro can be replaced by mashed sweet potato or ground

mung bean The mung bean (''Vigna radiata''), alternatively known as the green gram, maash ( fa, ماش٫ )٫ mūng (), monggo, or munggo (Philippines), is a plant species in the legume family.Brief Introduction of Mung Bean. Vigna Radiata Extract G ...

and becomes the yellow sweet potato ball () or the green mung bean ball (). The dessert can be served with

syrup In cooking, a syrup (less commonly sirup; from ar, شراب; , beverage, wine and la, sirupus) is a condiment that is a thick, viscous liquid consisting primarily of a solution of sugar in water, containing a large amount of dissolved sugars ...

either icy or hot. It is also very common to use taro balls and sweet potato balls to top other Taiwanese desserts like

douhua Douhua () is a Chinese sweet or savoury snack made with very tender tofu. It is also referred to as doufuhua (), tofu pudding, soybean pudding or, particularly in northern China, tofu brains (). History Tofu is thought to have originated in ...

tshuah-ping ''Tshuah-ping'' (Taiwanese Hokkien: 礤冰 or 剉冰; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: ''chhoah-peng'') or ''Tsua bing'', also known as ''Baobing'' () in Mandarin, is a shaved ice dessert introduced to Taiwan during Taiwan under Japanese rule, and then spread fro ...

References

Taiwanese cuisine Taiwanese desserts Taro dishes {{Taiwan-cuisine-stub

See also

References