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.

GINGER LEMON FISH CURRY

This is what I got from watching the AFC channel. If my memory doesn't fail me it was a series hosted by Marilee Parker and she was in India at the time.

I couldn't resist trying it after watching the way Marilee described how wonderful it tasted. I doubt that this is a typical Indian dish but it did taste good and it gave me something new to cook. Besides being very quick and simple to prepare it is very light, creamy and refreshing in flavour and I love the ginger-lemony flavour and the aroma the curry leaves let off.

I small red snapper or other white fish, cut in steaks or fillets, about 400 gm in all
3 shallots, sliced finely
1 inch ginger, sliced or shredded
1/2 tsp tumeric powder
a couple of crushed bird chillies, or more, optional
Half a handful of curry leaves

Juice of 1/2 a lemon
220 ml coconut cream
About 1/2 cup of water

1 tbsp vegetable oil

Heat up the oil in a pot and saute the sliced ingredients until they turn translucent. Add the tumeric powder and saute a few seconds more. Add the curry leaves and enjoy the beautiful aroma that they release. Add bird chillies if you want a really spicy gravy otherwise add it at the end of the cooking so the heat from the chillies will not be too intense.

Add in about 100 ml of the coconut cream and the water. Bring to a boil and then add the fish cutlets or fillets. Allow to simmer.

Add the juice of 1/2 a lemon and the rest of the coconut cream. Stir and let siommer untilteh fish is cooked through.

Serve with hot plain or buttered rice.

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.