GLUTINOUS CONES WITH COCONUT FILLING - KUIH KOCI

Hell-looow I'm back. Back from reality. From real life. As opposed to the my virtual one. I apologize for the sudden, unannounced exit but it was a totally on-the-spur-of-the-moment-thing, unplanned and something that I was completely in need of. Like food and water.

I've been lungeing at the treadmill, threatening those weights, revamping my garden (if you can call it one), painting the old rattan chair a fresh, vibrant white, drinking 8 glasses of water a day, gulping down some wheat-grasss-ed smoothies and living. Just plain down to earth, real life, tangible living.

It feels good and I figured I am now deserving of getting back into my virtual world for a moment, talk to you and make a treat for my blog. So I made some kuih koci - glutinous, sticky, sweet coconut filled cones standing pointedly pretty and ready to be bitten into....It's sticky, sweet without being overly so, stretchy and just so pointedly good!


For those of you who know not yet a combination of glutinous rice flour and coconut cream makes an amazingly giving and very obliging dough. Lacking the gluten present in wheat flour, there is no worry about over-mixing, over-kneading, of it cracking when shaping or even of it drying out. I had a blast handling this dough and it reminded me of a very white, fat and absolutely lazy cat who would allow you to twist, turn, bend, cuddle, squeeze, shape or press its soft plump body any which way you want without as much as a whimper or a threat. That was how it felt. Just so indulgent, gracious and agreeable.


The filling for the kuih koci (pronounced ko-weh ko-chi) was some coarsely shredded coconut sweetened with a thick palm sugar syrup and cajoled into a moist, dark, damp and scrummy mound; a very popular filling for Asian cakes and desserts.


And thank god for banana leaves too..... because it allows me to make my cakes in any form I fancy. And since I was in the mood for cones, cones it was. Love those pointed tips.


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

Prepare the banana leaves :

Wipe clean on both sides, cut into rectangular pieces about 6 by 4 inches and wilt the banana leaves over a fire on your stove or in the oven at a low temperature. Swipe them with some cooing oil before wrapping the glutinous rice cones.Check here on how to prepare banana leaves for wrapping.

The filling :

1 to 1 1/2 cups fresh shredded coconut
100 gm palm sugar, broken into pieces
1 tbsp regular white sugar or to taste
a pinch of salt

Place the palm sugar, white sugar, salt and 1 or 2 tablespoons of water ina small pot over small heat. When the palm sugar has dissolved pour in the shredded coconut. Mix well until teh coconut is veenly coated witht eh sugar and is a dark rich brown.

The dough :

2 cups glutinous rice flour
2 tbsp castor sugar
1 tbsp vegetable oil
pinch of salt
1 cup (250 ml) coconut cream

Place the dry ingredients in a medium bowl and mix. Add the liquid ingredients and combine with a spatula first and then as the mixture begins to get lumpy use your hands to form into a smooth and soft dough. It may seem dry at first but rest assured that there is more than enough moisture to bind the dough together into a soft lovely mass.

Divide the dough into 12 pieces. Roll 1 piece into a ball and then flatten into a disc. Place the coconut filling in the centre of the disc, cover up and seal. You may at this point shape it inot a rough cone first.

Get a piece of wilted banana leaf and roll it into a cone shape like you would a piece of paper for piping icing. Place the filled dough snugly into the banana leaf cone, fold down the excess at the top firmly and tightly and place the filled cone flat down on its base. Do the same for the rest of the dough and filling.

I understand that one could staple the banana leaf into place to ensure that it doesn't open up during the steaming process but I haven't figured out how that could ever be done. An easier way of wrapping these little dumplings would be to place the filled ball of dough onto the rectangular banana leaf, fold over the top and bottom ends over the dough snugly and then fold the left and rights ends under and place them folded ends down flat on a plate until they are ready to be steamed.

If all this sounds too complicated to you, believe me, it's not. It sounds more complicated than it is. A little experimenting and common sense will work just fine.

Set a steamer ready at a rolling boil and steam those little babies for 15 to 20 minutes. Serve wrapped in the banana leaves. YUMMMMMMMM

STEAMED LAYER CAKE - KUIH LAPIS PANDAN

Two important words in making Asian cakes are evaporation and condensation. It makes all the difference between jadi and tak jadi (To become or not to become.......To be or not to be) :)

Making a steamed kuih lapis successfully has always eluded me. I have never been successful at it. Either because the layers took forever to solidify in the steamer or they came out in a one colour block or the top looked like it had been spat on or all of the above.

Whenever I asked friends for a recipe or why the recipe didn't work I never could get a satisfactory answer. And it was often that I went home, hanging my head low, with my tail between my legs and swearing (genteely) under my breath. So that was how I lived for 800 years.

Then one day the heavens spoke to me.They roared "Evaporation'!! and 'Condensation'!! I wrote the words hurriedly down in my book of life. And ever since that divine intervention I have lived the following 600 years streaming tears of joy.

But it is only in 2009 that I have been brave enough to (decide) to attempt the steamed kuih lapis again, with the guidance that I have been accorded.

But another secret that I was not told was the fact that that *bamboo steamers are not just pretty, rustic little things. They are crucial and central and are the core of successful steaming in the Asian kitchen. I was not told that evaporation, condensation and bamboo steamers put together are a classic example of synergy.

For bamboo steamers, like punching bags, like women, like mothers are one of the parts of the whole that provide that vehicle for absorption that is crucial in the maintenance of harmony and sanity in this mad huffing, puffing, steaming, evaporating and condescending world. It absorbs all nonsense and all excessive drops from condensation and it is a receptacle for tears of anger, of frustrations and of steam. In an Asian kitchen a bamboo steamer is indispensable, that is, if you want a taste of an unrippled, unblotched, perfect and sweet dessert in a little corner of your life.

But, like all things good and sublime, its contribution to the whole is often overlooked, underrated and more often than not it goes by unnoticed. Except by the chosen ones.

Now let's discuss the recipe........this is a recipe from Amy Beh. It uses a large portion of tapioca starch or tapioca flour (they are one and the same) and a small portion of rice flour. But instead of the rice flour I had used glutinous rice flour by mistake but all in all it turned out wonderful and strangely enough it reminded me of gummy bears. This is a firm cake, slightly sticky and it cuts well. It is here that you can play around, that is, with the ratio of tapioca vs rice flour to get the texture that you like best. Half and half would be good to try.

There are softer versions that use a larger amount of rice flour as opposed to tapioca flour but which does not give that translucent effect. But which is just as delicious if not more. I will be posting the recipe soon.

Doing away with the traditional red and white of a steamed kuih lapis I used the juice of pandan leaves and made them green and white instead. Green is my favourite colour. The gentle yellow-green and the creamy white that eventually formed the thin layers of this sweet were just exquisite....... in my humble opinion.


Also, because it cut extremely well, I used a cookie cutter, stamped them out into pretty flower shapes and at the end of the project I was practically jumping for joy. I thought they were perfectly pretty, tasted very good and would make delightfully elegant after-dinner desserts or cocktail sweets or a treat for a childrens' birthday party.

This is steamed kuih lapis reinvented. I proudly and perpetually patted myself on the back.

The flavour was lovely and it is a recipe and presentation that I highly recommend if you want something old, something new, something sweet, something adorable and something really really good.

It's perfect for peeling too for those of you who have spent half your childhood irresistibly peeling off the layers of steamed kuih lapis before popping them into your mouth, like some adults I know. ;)


The recipe.........I halved Amy Beh's with some added adjudsments.....

The syrup :

350 ml thin coconut milk (from 1/2 grated coconut)
225 gm granulated sugar
2 pandan leaves, knotted
pinch of salt

Combine and sift :

225 gm tapioca flour/starch
60 gm rice flour or glutinous rice flour ( I used glutinous )
1 tbsp mung bean/green bean flour ( Or hoen kwe flour)(they all one and the same)

250 ml thin coconut milk (from 1/2 grated coconut)

Pulsed in a blender, strained and juice extracted :

4 pandan leaves, cut up coarsely
50 ml water

To make...........

Boil ingredients for the syrup until sugar dissolves. Strain and let cool.

Sift the flours, add the 250 ml of coconut milk and stir until smooth. Pour in the boiled and cooled syrup gradually and stir well to blend.

Divide the batter into 2 portions and to one of the portions add the green pandan juice and stir well to mix the colour in evenly.

Lightly grease with a light cooking oil (sunflower or canola) an 8 inch preferably non-stick shallow pan. Set up the bamboo steamer and get the water to a rolling boil and I really hope that your stove is level.

Pour in about 100 ml of white batter into the pan and steam for 6 to 7 minutes covered. Do the next layer green and so on until the batter is all used up and the green layer is the top most layer. Whent he final layer is poured in steam the kuih for 20 to 30 minutes to ensure that the whole kuih is completely cooked. team the last 5 minutes uncovered to dry the surface.

Let the kuih cool for 2 to 3 hours, brush the top with very lightly with cooking oil then cut. The knife of cookie cutter may be lightly greased for easier cutting.

This is not a tall kuih because I doubt that you will be able to find a cookie cutter tall enough to cut through if the kuih was any taller than this.

PS : If you would like to make it the traditional way and not stamp out cutesy flower patterns :( just double the recipe and use a 9 inch round pan instead.


* Bamboo steamers, unlike stainless steel steamers, absorb the drops of water from condensation extremely well thus preventing the food/cake from getting soggy. Although most stainless steel steamers have domed lids that allow droplets of water to flow and drip to the sides of the pan and not into the food it does not work as well as a bamboo steamer (and I suppose never will). The bamboo wood soaks in the moisture immediately and completely. This is evidenced in the dampness of the bamboo steamer after being used.

COCONUT-FILLED CREPES - KUIH DADAR

Since starting this blog I have come to realize that decisions aren't made sitting down. Uh Uh. 'Cause the sooner I get my bottom off this seat the sooner I'll make something edible and blog worthy.

I've been vacillating in virtual reality between a multi layered cheesecake, pocket pitas, elaborately decorated cupcakes (I so roll mine eyes), puffin muffins, an Indian briyani, a daring baker's homemade bicep-forming shoulder-broadening spinach lasagna, a Chinese steamed fish, spicy roast chicken, long cheese sticks, a rustic apple roll, a choc chip mocca cake and a zillion other foods that have been bookmarked but which have yet to become a reality.

Decisions,decisions, decisions.

Decisions too become very hard when you're trying to please everyone and you're trying to kill/feed 2, 3, 4 or 5 birds/humans with 1 stone/recipe. It becomes difficult too when there are a million excuses to not make them. But since pragmatism is the stepping stone to progress move forward I must and move forward I will.

So the only inexcusable food that would be inexcusable not to make would be a coconut filled crepe. As simple as only simple could get because a Malay crepe is rustic and covered with all the indentations that ineptitude would allow.

Unlike the western crepe where fineness, silkiness and the laced tidemark-like lines are the hallmark of a skilled crepe maker a Malay crepe maker would consider all that crepe-crap. We want the holes. We want the holes. We want to burst our bubbles. And of course........... we want it green.


Some of my friends/non-friends would probably raise their eyebrows and scrunch their lips at this little observation especially the one about the holes and bubbles but for as long as I have lived that is what I've seen. Holey crepes. Well to be more exact, indented, pock marked, burst bubble crepes. Beautifully indented, pockmarked, burst bubble crepes. After all, beauty they say is in the eyes of the beholder.

Kuih dadar (crepe cake) reminds me of old world sarong-clad and generally overweight mak ciks (aunties) swirling and rolling holey crepes with their chubby, greasy and shiny fingers in the wet kitchens of Malay homes. And if the filling that they make is darkly moist and a touch salty and quite sugary sweet with the slightest hint of a crunch from the coarsely shredded coconut it makes them all the more memorable. The crepes. And the mak ciks too.



So holey crepes here I come.......scrunchhhh.......stretchhhh......yaaaawnnn.....finally I've ripped my bottom off this chair.

The recipe....

The crepes..

1 cup of plain flour
250 ml fresh milk or coconut milk(the consistency of fresh milk)
*50 ml pandan juice (made by blending 4 pandan leaves with 50m ml of water and strained)
1 egg (you could use 2 for a thinner batter 'n it would work as well) (I didn't for health reasons)
pinch of salt

Blend all ingredients for the crepes in a blender or use a wooden spoon or whisk. If necessary strained to rid of lumps. Let rest for 20 minutes. It will thicken slightly upon resting.

*If you decide to use green colouring or pandan paste do substitute the 50 ml of pandan juice with 50 ml of water or milk or coconut milk.

Filling

2 cupsof fresh shredded coconut
1 disc of coconut palm sugar or 3 Tbsp of muscovado sugar
2 - 3 tbsp water

Place sugar and water in a small pan (if using solid palm sugar do crush to coarse pieces first). Heat just until the sugar melts. Add a pinch of salt and then put in the shredded coconut.Mix well until the coconut is completely coated with the sugar. Taste and if necessary add white sugar to sweeten.

Making the crepes......

Heat a teaspoon of oil in a 7 - 8 inch non stick pan until hot. There is no temperature limit unlike in a western crepe. The hotter the pan the more holes and bubbles you're going to get. Pour in a small ladleful of batter into the pan and swirl or use the bottom of your ladle and spread the batter in a circular motion with it. That's is what is usually done. Lower the heat and cook until done and the mixture solidifies. It will be obvious. When done you could flip it over for good measure and keep it aside on a plate for rolling later. The crepe should be about 6 inches in diameter.

Check to see if the 'right' side of the crepe has holes or indentations. If there are congratulate yourself. If there aren't heat up the pan a by a few degrees so that the oil sizzles when you pour on the batter. For each crepe you make put a half teaspoon of oil in the pan and heat it up.

It is the hot bubbling oil that causes the 'holes' or indentations and makes the crepe look porkmarked. It sounds awful but that's how it's been done. It would be strange to see a smooth as silk, 'bald' Malay crepe.


The crepes can be stacked up until the last crepe is done.

Filling and Rolling......

Roll up the crepes like you would a spring roll. Make them nice and snug and neat.


Because this is an almost ideal world I managed to make 9 crepes from the batter and had enough filling for 10 crepes.

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.

KUIH LOPIS - PANDAN GLUTINOUS RICE CAKES WITH PALM SUGAR SYRUP

Since I still had left over banana leaves froma previous recipe, a good amount of glutinous rice and uncontrollable pandan bushes in my backyard I thought I'd venture on making some kuih lopis.

Kuih Lopis is a Malay cake or dessert made from glutinous rice flavoured and coloured with the juice of the pandanus(screwpine) leaves, wrapped snugly in banana leaves and boiled in pandan flavoured water. What comes out is a very compact and solid bundle of green glutinous rice which you then roll in flaked or shredded coconut and serve with a sweet thick palm sugar syrup. Mmmmm delish!

This was my first attempt at making this sweet in a triangular shape. I used to make it in a cylindrical shape and then slice it into rounds. Uh Uh...that wasn't good enough for me now. I have risen up a notch and I now want to make it triangular in shape BUT unfortunately I hadn't a clue how to do that.



But destiny gave me a big nod by way of the AFC channel. I couldn't believe my eyes and ears when I happened to switch to the AFC channel and saw a restaurant owner showing the host of "Just Desserts" how to wrap a triangular shaped kuih lopis. I sat stock still, bolt upright and absorbed every morsel of flicker that came through that tv screen. Thank you God.

1 2/2 cups glutinous rice soaked in water with pandan juice added

The Pandan Juice :

6-7 medium pandan leaves, washed
1/3 cup water

Blend the pandan leaves and water and strain the juice. Add it to the water to be used for soaking the glutinous rice. Soak the glutinous rice in this green tinted water. Most people would add a few drops of green colouring to this to achieve the bright green colour typical of Malay cakes. I was hoping that the pandan juice-coloured water would give me a nice healthy natural pandan green but unfortunately what evolved after cooking the rice was a very pale and subtle green. I thought it was quite beautiful but most people would expect a bright green.

After soaking for a night, strain the rice and reserve the water.

Prepare the banana leaves :

The banana leaves do not need to be wilted for this. Just use as is. Clean and wipe them down.

Cut the banana leaves into squares roughly 8' by 8'. Roll the square piece of leaf into a cone shape. Make sure the hole at the bottom is as tiny as possible so that the rice won't escape.



Wrap your hand around the empty banana leaf cone comfortably with the loose end/flap facing you and with the sharp end pointing downwards. Using a tablespoon pour some rice into the cone. About 2 tablespoons of glutinous rice should do it. If you cut your banana leaf square bigger then you can put more.

Once filled, fold the opened top of the cone down completely so that you get a nice snug triangular packet of glutinous rice.




Don't bother to leave space for expansion for when the rice cooks and fluffs up. Through trial and error I realized that the little space that I had left which I thought was for expansion was not necessary at all. Because I had left that space the glutinous rice was not as compact and as tightly packed as it should have been when I unwrapped it after I had done boiling it.

So just fold the top down snugly over the rice and using a sharp bamboo toothpick or lidi (the spine of the coconut leaf) secure the top of the folded edge with it by poking through in and out like in the picture. It will look a little messed up from this side but if you turn it around and look at it from the other side it will look slightly better.



Like so......


You can trim the extra edges if you like but not too much. Do the same for the rest of the glutinous rice until everything has been used up. You should get about 10 triangular packets in all.

Place the water that you strained from soaking the rice into a large pot. Add additional water, enough to cover all the packets of rice comfortably. It should be somewhat green from the pandan juice. I wanted the green colouring of the water to tint the glutinous rice green further as it boiled. Bring the water to a boil and then place the rice packets in and let boil for 45 minutes, covered.

When done lift them out carefully and place in a colander and let cool.

Unwrap. Roll the triangles in shredded coconut seasoned with a little salt. Serve with a thick palm sugar syrup.

Palm Sugar Syrup :

I won't be giving measurements here because I did not measure when I made this. So please use your own judgement. In the picture below is a block of palm sugar.



Palm sugar in blocks.
White sugar
Water

Boil all three together and until you get a nice thick syrup. Pour the dark sweet syrup over the kuih lopis and enjoy!



TIP : The banana leaf has a thick rib running through it. When sold the rib has been cut away and the two large flaps are rolled and wrapped for sale. The cut edge (ie the edge that was along the rib is stiffer and less flexible than the outside edge of the leaf.

When rolling the banana leaf into a cone you should use the softer more flexible outside edge as the tip of the cone so that the leaf doesn't tear as you roll it to a tip. If you use the stiffer edge it will be quite impossible to roll it into a tight tip without tearing the leaf.

TIP : when folding down and securing with the toothpick make sure that there are no loose ends or flaps where the cone can come apart while boiling. Make sure everything is secured buy the toothpick and the rice is safe inside.

PULUT UDANG - SPICY COCONUT PRAWNS AND GLUTINOUS RICE ROLLS

My father's favourite savoury snack and mine too. I did not really look forward to making this as it entails four separate activities. The cooking of the filling, the cooking of the glutinous rice, the wiping and wilting of the banana leaves and then finally the wrapping and rolling of the food in the banana leaves. But it was worth all the effort in the end and I now have a stack of yummy 'pulut udang' that I can snack on throughout the day. Makes 12 rolls.

Glutinous rice :

2 cups glutinous rice, soaked overnight
1/2 to 3/4 cup of thick coconut milk, an approximate amount
salt

Bring a steamer pot of water to boil. Drain the glutinous rice, add the salt, and place the rice directly into the second tier of a steamer pot (the one with holes). Dribble some cococnut milk over the rice, probably about 3 or 4 tablespoons at a time, stir to mix, cover and let steam. After about 15 minutes open the lid, give the rice a toss (be careful of the hot steam) and dribble some more coconut milk. Taste for salt and add some more if bland.

Do this intermittently, a couple or more times, until the rice is completely cooked through. Unfortunately I did not time the cooking so I can't really tell you exactly how long it took. But by a rough estimate it probably took about 45 minutes or so. When it is done just leave the rice in the pot covered until you are ready to roll. The heat in the pot will continue to cook the rice while covered.

The Filling :

3 shallots
5-6 fresh red chillies
1 stalk of lemon grass, sliced finely
a knob of fresh tumeric or a 1/2 tsp of tumeric powder

The above three ingredients are to be pounded to a paste or chopped in a food prcessor till very fine.

1 1/2 tbsp dried prawns, soaked to soften and pounded coarsely
7 -8 medium sized prawns diced

2 cups grated coconut
2 Tbsp cooking oil
salt

Heat the cooking oil in a pan and saute the pounded ingredients, and pounded dried prawns until they turn soft and slightly golden. Add the diced fresh prawns and stir until the prawns are cooked through.

Add the grated coconut and stir again to coat the coconut with the spices. Add salt to taste.

Preparing the banana leaves :

Wipe the banana leaves down with a clean damp cloth. Wilt them over the open flame of your stove by holding the banana leaves at one end and pulling it across directly over the flames making sure every part of the laef is heated and wilted. You will be able to see the banana leaves wilt and soften almost immediately upon contact with the flames. Be careful not to burn though. Cut them into squares roughly the same size about 6 by 6 or slightly larger if you like.

Here is a good explanation on various other methods on how to wilt and prepare banana leaves for wrapping foods.

The construction :

Take a blob of glutinous rice and place it on a pice of banana leaf. Flatten it like in the picture and then put some filling over it as you would when you make a sushi.



Use the top and bottom ends of the banana leaf to bring the rice over the filling and then open it up again and roll it up into a neat roll. Fold up the left and right ends and STAPLE!



This is a little strange because this is the only occasion where I have stapled a food item. The traditional way is to use a lidi (the spine of a coconut leaf) which looks something like bamboo skewers but which are more flexible and not as threathening. I couldn't get any lidis so like many other people in the city I used staples.

Anyway once all the pulut and filling have been used up and rolled and wrapped in the banana leaves arrange them in a single layer and place them on a baking tray and cook them under the broiler of your oven or grill them over an open fire (which is the traditional way just like grilling satay) or in a grilling pan on the stove until part of the banana wrapping have become somewhat burnt on the outside and looks grilled. It probably takes about 15 minutes over an open fire.

Serve the pulut udang with the banana leaves left on.


It will have a lovely smoky flavour as a result of the grilling which goes well with the yummy spicy combination of prawn filled grated coconut and sticky rice. After grilling the surface of the rice layer will be golden, crusty and a little chewy. Not much different from the 'kerak' or crust that's left at the bottom of your pot after you have cooked some rice. Yum.



TIP : Don't worry if the filling shows through rice layer a little. It will all be covered up by the banana leaves and when cooked it will taste just as good as when it looks perfect.

TIP : If you find the sticky rice sticking to your hands as you handle it, rub a little cooking oil on your hands before you work or use a patch of lightly oiled banana leaf to press and flatten the sticky rice ready to be filled.

TIP : Make sure you leave the rice in the pot COVERED while you make the filling or do other things other wise the rice will get dry on the surface and will be somewhat crusty. Uncover only when you are ready to use it.

BAKED BANANA FRITTERS

Another one of my late mother-in-law's food that I have inherited.

At the orchard where my in parents in law lived fruits always grew in abundance and bananas were one of them. With combs and combs of bananas spilling over in their backyard, more than they could ever eat, my mother-in-law did what was the most natural thing to do in a hot tropical country like ours. She split the bananas lengthwise and baked them in the sun. Very much like sun dried fish, sun dried prawns and so many other kinds of dried foods in this part of the world.

The results, after a few blistering days in the searing sun, were caramelized bananas, browned and shrunken to half their original size. And golden with a rich caramelized sweetness.

Then my mother-in-law did the next most natural thing. She deep fried them in hot oil and she would serve them as a mid-afternoon snack almost everyday until the stock of bananas depleted.

So the first time that I was presented by my mother-in-law with a carton full of sun-baked bananas from their orchard I immediately made a batter that would crack and crackle at every bite to match the caramelized, candy sweetness of the fruit. It was pure heaven and I have never looked back since. My favourite banana fritters.

However, it has been years since I have had fried bananas like those again simply because I have never considered sun baking fruits as a desirable past time. There's a reason that I only exit the house in the later part of the afternoon or in the early part of the morning and use kilos of sun block each time. And there is a reason too that there are five air conditioners in our home.

So I did the next best thing that I could think of. I baked them for about an hour in the oven. The results though was not and can never be as nature would have caramelized them but they were better than not at all.

These were the bananas that I used. I wish I knew the name (I'll have to d a little asking around) but these are the bananas that are meant for frying. If I waited another day for them to ripen further they would have caramelized sweeter and richer when baked I'm sure......



Skin and then split each banana lengthwise and place the pieces on a baking tray lined with non stick baking paper. Bake them in the oven at 150 C for an hour or slightly more until the bananas have reduced in size a little and are slightly golden but not too much. I once baked them too long and they turned out as hard as bricks. So be careful not to overbake them!

Before baking.....



After baking.....see how they have shrunk a little and how the sugar in the fruit look more concentrated. If these were sun dried they would be very very golden and you could almost feel the caramel when you squeezed it a little.



The bananas below were the ones that were still whole and unpeeled in teh picture above. I allowed them to ripen for 24 hours since I bought them and then baked them at 150 C for maybe 1 1/2 hours and look how they turned out!! Beautifully golden, sugary sweet and moist. It's looks almost as good as the sun baked ones! One lesson learnt. Use really really ripe bananas for baking. Can you see the difference from the top tray of bananas? It's a vast difference isn't it?



When done remove tray from the oven and let the bananas cool. In the meantime make the batter........

1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup rice flour plus 1 Tbsp
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
a good pinch of salt
About 3/4 cup water ( I used a bit more..about 3/4 cup plus 1/8 cup)

Mix everything together until you get a smooth batter without any lumps. I must emphasize the salt here. It is really good if you can achieve a trace of saltiness in the batter. It brings out the sweetness of the fruit. It sounds strange but I suppose for the sake of logic the slight edge of saltiness in the batter contrasts and brings out the sweetness of the fruit even more (did I just repeat myself? So much for logic)... Anyway it really makes so much difference to the overall taste of the fritter.

Dip the bananas in the batter and fry them in hot oil until golden brown and crisp. Serve while still hot or warm to enjoy the crunch and crackle of the batter.

Note : The bananas will never be as sweet or as richly caramelized as sun dried ones but they do taste better, with a slight chewiness to it, than a banana fritter that has not been baked. That is my humble opinion of course.

STEAMED COCONUT LAYER CAKE

Ahhh.....I have been drooling over this recipe for years. Been looking at the pictures in the Taiwanese recipe book that I stumbled upon some years ago while in Taiwan and I have been pushing myself to Just Do It. Finally.... I did do it.

I suppose the only reason that I never brought myself to try out the recipe was because I knew that I could not get the perfect shredded coconut.

I believe for any sweet dessert that requires shredded coconut as an ingredient it is crucial that the shredded coconut kernel is coarse as in sweet, long, flaky and juicy strands that spell crunch and oozes a juicy sugary sweetness at very bite. That is my idea of a coconut filled dessert. I have no desire to work up the energy to bite into a sweet coconut filling that feels like a boring and flat sugary paste without interest, texture or life.

Then one day when I was at a bakery supply store which is constantly run by a staff of employees who practically scream "take it or leave it" into your face I stumbled upon a large packet of flaky coconut strands. With my hands wrapped tightly around the large dense packet I looked up into the heavens and thought that perhaps it was meant to be.

Coconut layer cakes here I come. I was ecstatic.

I thought it strange though that it was labeled Hawaiin Coconut Flakes. I sniggered and for a moment wondered quite naively why on earth did we have to import coconut all the way from Hawaii when the availability of nuts in Malaysia abound beyond needs and dimensions. Then I figured it out. We needed the word Hawaiin to make it mysterious and exotic and EXPENSIVE. Ten ringgit for a 500 gm packet of grated coconut! While thanking heaven though I meekly paid the amount to the horrible cashier and left.

The recipe called for candied papaya shreds too as a topping.

I forgo-ed that and used chopped glaced cherries instead. It was a mistake because the red of the cherries smeared the top and made the cake look quite messed up leaving stains of red where the pieces of cherries had fallen off. But the 'Hawaiin' Coconut Flakes more than made up for it and it was indeed heaven that I bit into.

Imagine squelching into a soft-puffy-pillow of steamed white bread layered with juicy-buttered-candied coconut flakes in your mouth.

Imagine.



The Dough :

6 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
13/4 warm water
1 Tbsp yeast
1 Tbsp baking powder
2 Tbsp shortening

In a bowl dissslove the sugar in warm water and then add the yeast. Let it stand until the yeast froths. I used instant yeast granules but followed the instructions anyway.

Sift flour into a bowl. Add the shortening and rub it in until it becomes the texture of fine braedcrumbs. Add the frothed yeast mixture and bring the dough together and knead with the heels of your hand.

If dry add water by wetting your hands or if too wet add flour. Knead until smooth and elastic. Place the dough into a large greased bowl and allow to rise unti it has trippled in bulk.

You can knead it again for 5 minutes and let it rise again or you can use it straight away. I let it rise a second time because Iwas watching something on tv.

Filling :

11/2 cups shredded coconut
1 cup icing sugar
1/4 melted butter

I actually ended up doubling the filling recipe because I ran out of filling for the second batch or thought that it wasn't enough to make it really yummy and moist.

Melt the butter in a pan. Stir in the coconut flakes and icing sugar. YUM! Oh ..divide the filling into 8 portions.

Construction :

Divide the dough into two. Roll out each half to a rectangle 16" by 6". I thought that 6 inches was a little narrow so I rolled it out a little broader. I suppose what should be the guide line is the thickness of the dough. The dough should be rolled out reasonably thin so that you do not get thick layers of bread and thin layers of coconut filling. The first batch I made was a little thick on the bread so I thinned out the second batch a little more.

Once you have a rectangle, mentally divide the rectangular dough into three parts and spread one portion of the filling on teh centre of the dough. Fold the left side over the midle portion and spread the filling. Fole the right side over.

Turn the folded dough to a horinzontal position and repeat teh rolling and folding process one more time. Then roll out the strip to an 8 inch square shape. Make the other half in the same manner. You can top it with the candied papaya/paw paw or with just some plain shredded coconut . I prefer the latter.

Prepare a bamboo steamer that has two tiers. On each tier lay a clean damp dish cloth and place the prepared square dough on each. It is obvious that one square will be ready before the next so you should place the first square first and let it rise for exactly 30 minutes. About ten minutes before the thirty minutes is up bring the water in the steamer pot to a rolling boil. Steam the bread for thirty minutes. Do not open the lid in between or the bread will fall.

Do the same for both halves. Remove the damp cloth from under the bread as soon as you can before it sticks to the bottom of the bread. Allow it to cool slightly. Slice and serve.

TIP : Do not let the prepared bread rise for more than 30 minutes or the dough will fall.

TIP :Always steam bread over boiling water, over high heat; otherwise the snack will be doughy.

TIP : When rolling out the dough do not knead it before rolling because it will cause the dough to be too elastic to roll out well or thinly. Just press down very lightly for a second or two and then roll out immediately while the dough is still soft and spongy.

TIP : I personally prefer to use ordinary bread flour even for pau or other pau like bread snack/cakes like this one because I do not like the fineness of a pau that uses those very refined special Hongkong flour to achieve a very very soft air-like pau. It is too fine and it just crumbles in my mouth before I can even begin to have a good chew or wonder what I had just eaten. The rustic quality of a pau that uses ordinary bread flour is much more to my taste and I enjoy biting into it and in this case sinking my teeth into the buttery coconut flakes in between each layer.

Drool......I'm going to make this again very soon.

Mamak Prawn Fritters - Cucur Udang

Today was a good day. This recipe has been evading me since I can remember and after ploughing through some disappointing experiments I never could get the chewy yet not tough, compact yet pillow light texture of the 'mamak' prawn fritters that they use for their Malaysian Indian Vegetable Salad or 'pasembur'.

But TODAY I found it!

And don't you just love the egg yolk yellow of the fritters inside? It's sooo authentic! (Ponder......ponder......ponder......I just changed my mind. I think its a little too gaudy. But that's what it really looks like in the shops).

This was an experiment carried out because we were having a guest over at mid-morning. So what better savoury to serve for a Malaysian mid morning snack than a vegetable prawn fritter? I'll tell you all the whys of this recipe later.

This recipe serves four.

1 1/2 cups plain flour, sifted
1 tbspn cornflour
1/4 teasp tumeric powder
1 1/2 teaspn salt
pepper to taste
2 eggs
1/4 cup water or stock

4 - 5 stalks of Chinese chives/kuchai, chopped into 1/2 inch lengths
2-3 shallots, sliced
1 large red chilly, halved and sliced finely, diagonally

10 fairly large prawns, 3 of them minced with 1/2 teaspn of cooking oil and the remaining 7 to be chopped coarsely

About 1 1/2 cups cooking oil for frying

Stir all the dry ingredients until well mixed. Add the eggs and liquid and mix till smooth.Add in the prawns (both the minced and chopped ones) and the vegetables. Mix thoroughly.

Heat up about a cup and a half of cooking oil in a small wok. Drop tablespoonfuls of the mixture into the hot oil and fry until a golden brown.Make sure they're cooked in the middle since the puffs are quite big. Drain on kitchen paper.

Cut into chunks and dip in Lingham chilly sauce or mayonnaise to savour. (I love Lingham's - the chilly sauce not the man)

TIP : Starchy cornflour contributed to the chewiness of the fritter. I made the batter thick and gooey instead of slightly runny. This also gave it the solidity and compactness that I was looking for.

TIP : The two eggs used contributed to the lightness and sponginess but at the same time giving a firm structure as well as a richness to the fritter so that it did not taste tough, dry and floury.

TIP : The addition of coarsely chopped and irregular shaped vegetables and prawns caused air pockets to form in the batter as it cooked. In contrast to the denseness of the rest of the fritter this gave the fritter a lightness as you bite through little air pockets that were achieved without having to resort to any leavening agents.

I don't like that photograph at all. :( I'm still working on my photography skills. Please bear with me. TIPS anyone? oops my sons say it's the food that's ugly.....as in the colours and the whole look in general...in that case maybe we should play down on the tumeric thing.......but it's tummy yummy though. So never judge a food by its colour.

Baked Kuih Seri Muka

I Know, I know, I have yet to make the Kuih Makmur to post it on the blog. I will. Too much kuih Raya is preventing me from making it too soon after Eid.

In the meantime, try this baked Kuih Seri Muka or literally translated 'Radiant Faced Cake'. LOL. This version is baked not steamed as it traditionally is. It is much more convenient and hassle free and turns out beautifully. It's very much like a sticky rice pudding with a rich, velvety custard topping. Very delish.

When you do make this do not omit the salt. It makes all the difference as the salt brings out the richness of the coconut milk flavour and makes the kuih one of the best.

Try to use fresh pandan leaves too and not green food colouring or the pandan flavouring from a bottle.

The bottled flavouring has no flavour. At all. And the green colouring cannot beat the natural muted green from a pandan leaf. I'm not a big fan of gaudy greens.

Of course if you live in an area not overwhelmed by pandan leaves carry on with the bottled stuff.

However, for the coconut milk, use the canned or packet kind.

Its important that you use an 8 inch square baking pan (lined with silicone or non-stick baking paper in one whole piece with ends that over hang the sides of the pan). Do not use a different sized pan.

This recipe makes about 25 pieces of kuih after cutting.



1 1/2 cups glutinous rice
1 3/4 cups coconut milk (the consistency of evaporated milk)
1/2 teaspoon salt

9 small or 4 large pandan/screwpine leaves, chopped roughly
1/2 cup water

4 eggs
1 cup castor sugar
1/3 teaspoon salt
2 Tbspoons plain flour
1 3/4 cups coconut milk (the consistency of evaporated milk)

Rinse the glutinous rice until the water is clean and clear. Drain. Put the drained glutinous rice into a rice cooker. Add salt and 1 3/4 cups of coconut milk. Stir. Switch on the rice cooker. When the button springs up to signal that the cooking is done leave the rice in the pot for another 20 to 30 minutes until the rice completely absorbs the coconut milk.

If, out of curiosity, you decide to take a peek into the rice cooker, do not be alarmed if you see a wet milky and gooey mess inside. If you let sit for another 20 minutes or so the rice would have absorbed all the coconut milk and it will be perfect for pressing into a baking pan.

In the meantime prepare the green custard:

Blend the chopped pandan/ screwpine leaves with 1/2 cup of water in a blender and then strain the juice. Keep aside.

Break 4 eggs into a medium bowl. Add in sugar and stir (do not whisk) until the sugar dissolves. Add strained pandan/screwpine juice. Add flour. Mix until there are no lumps of flour visible. Add in the coconut milk and SALT. Stir and strain into a medium sized jug.

Assembly:

Line an 8 inch/20 cm square baking pan with baking paper or silicone paper (NOT greaseproof paper). This is very important if you want for easy and clean cutting of the kuih/cake later. Make sure that you have excess baking paper all around (meaning that the paper comes about 1 inch over the height of the pan. You'll see why later.

Scoop the cooked glutinous rice into the lined pan. Spread it out and press down. Level it evenly with the back of a tablespoon or with the palm of your hand lined with a clean unused heat proof plastic food bag or cling film. The second way makes for easier leveling but do let the glutinous rice cool a little before doing that. If you don't then you'll know why I said that.

Press down firmly to make sure that there are no gaps and that the layer is tight and compact and reaches well to the sides of the pan. Pour over the strained green custard.

Bake at 170 C for 1 hour or until it feels firm when the baking pan is slightly shaken.

Let it cool completely. When it has cooled lift it out of the pan by holding onto the excess baking paper on the sides and place it on a flat surface. Cut as you wish into diamond shapes or into small squares. Delish!!



TIP : There is no need to soak the glutinous rice first as some people do before they steam it. If you do that your rice cooker will not work and the button will jump up while the rice grains are still raw. Its ok when steaming on a stove top but not when cooking in a rice cooker. Why? I'm not a scientist. I'm a cook. It just happened when I did that. :(

I figured that the glutinous rice had absorbed plenty of liquid upon soaking and it had reached a saturation point of sorts. Because it had fluffed up and is very starchy by nature it just wouldn't cook or boil in the relatively small amount of liquid that was used. The rice cooker couldn't do its work. (like I said I'm no scientist). So if you'll just do as I say I wouldn't have to ramble on. :)

TIP : Don't be appalled if you see that the edges of the cooked kuih/cake looking like a wrinkled prune, like in the picture below. That's the most delish part but the rest of the kuih/cake will be perfect.



TIP : The reason I insisted on not using greaseproof paper is because the paper will stick to the bottom of the kuih/cake and tear when you try to remove it. Unnecessary stress incurred. And while you're doing that the whole green custard will fall off because you have to turn the kuih/cake over to do the surgery. PLOP.

TIP : When cutting the kuih/cake, clean the knife after slicing along each length so that its easy to cut the next row without stickiness.

TIP : The low heat during baking makes for a smooth, velvety and silky custard.If the oven is too hot the custard will get too brown on top and air pockets will form in the cooked custard because the mixture was bubbling furiously in the hot oven.

TIP : For some reason the cooked glutinous rice layer never gets burnt or overcooked upon baking. I never could give a satisfactory explanation for that but if you could I'd love to hear it.

TIP : Do use the 8 inch square baking pan that I mentioned. The recipe is perfect for the size. Any larger or smaller and the height of the kuih/cake layers will be affected.