PANDAN TRUFFLES - ONDEH-ONDEH

If your mother/wife/husband/MIL/boss nags you serve them these. Good way to silence them for a while. Serve them a whole plate and they'll be quiet for an even longer time. Sticky, gooey, stretchy and delicious it will keep them quiet for more reasons than one.

This is a Malay confection made from glutinous rice flour coloured green from the juice of pandan leaves (South East Asia's answer to vanilla). Filled with a sweet burst of a rich, dark, coconut palm sugar syrup, boiled in water until it floats to the surface and then rolled in lightly salted shredded coconut it makes a wonderfully soft, sticky, gooey, stretchy sweet that is utterly delicious. Place them in pretty paper cases instead of piling them up like a stack of cannon balls and they are food fit for a princess, prince, king or queen.



Thank god I found a dainty way to serve this. These are usually served like a pile of rocks in Malaysia. With the paper cases cradling them they would be a lot less messy to eat too especially if you bite through them (a method of eating that is not recommended). The safest (and less embarrassing) way to eat this is to pop the whole darn thing into your mouth, give it a good bite, feel the syrup squirt all over the insides of your mouth and work your jaw really hard. Make sure you oiled your jaw joints first. And make sure you have real god given teeth. Dentures, no matter what make or model, will clack and clatter that you'll regret ever having had dentures or having bitten into these innocent looking ondeh-ondeh.

These are what they look like inside. These things squirt!



These confections are best made on the smaller side so that they can be popped into the mouth whole. Ideal if you don't want sugar dripping down your shirt or squirting on your friend across the table.

* Best eaten by teenagers and adults only. If little children eat these watch them(the children) carefully or cut them(the truffles) up into little pieces first. Like fish balls when eaten whole there is potential for choking.

Little devils these things are. But Yum!

Here's the recipe..............

2 cups glutinous rice flour
150 ml pandan juice (4 or 5 pandan leaves blended in a blender with 150 amount of water and strained)

a small bowl of finely chopped palm sugar or muscovado sugar (you really don't need much)

some coarsely shredded coconut or dessicated coconut if you can't get fresh.
salt

Mix the flour and pandan juice and work it through until you get a firm dough. If too dry add a little water. If too wet add a little flour. Your dough should not be sticky. In fact it should be very firm and maybe on the drier side. If its too dry as you roll them just wet your palm a little and continue.

Get a pot of water to boil on the stove before you do the rolling and filling.

Pinch off some dough. Roll it into a round ball between your palms and then flatten it into a circle or bowl shape. Using a teaspoon scoop some finely chopped sugar into the 'bowl' and seal and roll again into a smooth ball.





Coconut palm sugar sold in discs.




Place the uncooked sugar balls on a plate until you have several pieces and then drop them into the boiling water and let them boil until they float to the surface. Meanwhile make some more until the dough is finished.

When the balls of dough float to the top pick them up with a 'spider web' /strainer and drain. Roll them immediately in a bowl of lightly salted shredded coconut.



Place in paper cases. Serve cold, not chilled but cold. Serves three or four.