They are usually made out of flour and filled with lotus seed paste or sweet bean paste, with cheaper versions filled with sweet potatoes.

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The Dango brothers may yet make their comeback, covered with sweet-bean paste.

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Though they have their differences, they all want to be reborn as tastier dumplings coated with a sweet-bean paste, and to remain side by side, as before, on the same skewer.

ECONOMIST: Gooey trio��s cheery message

Fortunately four to five meals per day of char kwey tiaw (fried noodles in soy sauce with egg and various additions), asam laksa (Penang's famous, indescribably good curry noodle soup), rojak (fruit and veggie salad in a sweet dark shrimp paste) and much, much more, goes down a lot easier than heavier Western foods.

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For children, at least in our family, the main event wasn't the service, or snacking on the symbolic bitter herbs, hard-boiled eggs or sweet charoset (a paste made from apples and nuts), or even dinner.

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The onions are used in a recipe for roasted sweet summer corn, whose master stroke is a sauce made from butter and white miso paste.

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