Taro Sago Kuih

I'm not sure if there is such a kuih combination around. I love gula melaka sago kuih and sweet taro kuih, so to kill two birds with one stone I made this layered kuih.

To do this layered kuih, I have to decide which layer I should steam first. After some deliberation with GS I decided to steam the taro layer first (bottom layer) as the taro can withstand heat and not lose its texture as it is embedded in glutinous rice flour and rice flour.





Ingredients:
Taro Layer
300g taro (cubed as in photo above)
50g grated coconut
80g glutinous rice flour
80g rice flour
120ml coconut milk
180ml warm water + 110g - 120g sugar + 1/4 tsp salt

Method:
1. Dissolve sugar and salt in the warm water, add in coconut milk then sieve in the flour mixture. Make sure the mixture is smooth and well-combined, strain if lumpy.
2. Remove 2 tablespoon of the flour mixture and keep aside for use later.
3. Add in the taro cubes and grated coconut, mix well.
4. Pour mixture into a tray which is lined in the base and greased with oil at the sides.
5. Steam on high heat for 30 minutes.

Sago Layer
135g sago pearls
70g grated coconut
85g gula melaka (chopped into small pieces)
45g sugar
4 tbsp water
60ml coconut milk
1/4 tsp salt

Method:
1. Soak the sago pearls in plenty of water for 20 minutes. Strain and leave aside for use later.
2. Dissolve gula melaka in 4 tbsp water over low heat. Strain and leave to cool.
3. Add all ingredients into cooled gula melaka syrup. Mix well.
4. Spread the 2 tbsp of flour mixture reserved from the taro layer (this is help the sago layer to stick to the taro layer) on to the cooked taro layer and immediately spread the sago layer evenly on top of the taro layer.
5. Steam on high heat for 30 minutes.

Pumpkin Xi Ban

I was intrigued with the article (Pumpkin Xi Ban) that QQredapple posted in KC, thus I did a search and started to delve into this item called Xi Ban(喜粄) which a traditional yet important snack in the Hakka cuisine.

What is Xi Ban (喜粄）？
Ban is the Hakka version of rice snack as in the equivalent of "kuih" in Hokkien. Ban is a snack that is made mainly of glutinous rice flour or rice flour. Ban is the highlight of all special occasions in the Hakka cuisine be it in wedding celebrations, funeral mournings, temple rituals/praying or any other celebrations.

Some of the Bans that we are familiar with are:
Hong Ban(紅粄) - this is similar to our Ang Gu Kuih (紅龜粿). They usually make this ban red in color for any happy celebrations such as wedding or baby's full moon.
Fa Ban(發粄) - this is similar to our Huat Kuih (發粿 ). The Hakkas make these for funerals, Ching Ming festival and temple rituals. These Fa Bans must crack wide open with big smiles to be considered auspicious.

Why is the Ban(粄) an important item in the Hakka celebrations?
Ages ago, the Hakkas were very poor and the main ingredients for Ban is glutinous rice which is a stomach filling item. These Bans were served before any main dishes for any celebrations, so the guests will be full by the time the mains were served and hence the host saved on monies spent on the mains - thrifty nature of a Hakka!

If you have not tasted a Xi Ban before, let me tell you what it is like. The texture of this Xi Ban is soft and bouncy, moist and fluffy and slightly chewy when you bite into it. Wow! All the sensation in one little Ban.


The pretty yellow color is the color of the pumpkin that I used.


Ingredients:
(A)
200g plain flour
2 tsp yeast
170ml warm water

(B)
200g glutinous rice flour
100g plain flour
2 tbsp oil
250g-280g mashed pumpkin
110g sugar

Method:
1. Mix all the ingredients in (A) well in a big mixing bowl. Cover the bowl with a wet towel and let it prove for 3 hours.
2. Steam pumpkin for 15 minutes. Remove from steamer, add sugar to the hot pumpkin and mashed it with a fork.
3. Mix mashed pumpkin into the rest of ingredients in (B). (Do not add all pumpkin at once, I first add 200g and then 20g every other time till you get a pliable dough.
4. Knead (1) and (3) together till you get a smooth dough. Dough is a little sticky but you should be able to mould it into small round balls, otherwise add in 10g of flour till you get the dough that you can handle.
5. Divide dough into 50g pieces, mould them into smooth round balls and flatten them. Place them on greased baking sheet or banana leaf. Prove for 90 minutes then steam on medium heat for 16 minutes.
6. Stamp them with red coloring, however, this is optional. Glace them with cooked cooking oil and leave to cool before serving.

Recipe Credit: (星洲日報/大都會•2007.09.01)

Abuk-Abuk Sagu

I was thinking of what to do with the left-over grated coconut from Kuih Kosui and remembered that Lucy made this before. Searched her site but couldn't find it. So I rang up S's mum and asked her if she knows how to do this. She gave me a verbal recipe using agaration.

Anyhow, with the the recipe on hand, I headed to the wet market to get some banana leaves for wrapping this kuih. Unfortunately, there isn't any. Went straight home and was thinking of improvising till I saw these spiral moulds which I bought ages ago. I cannot remember what I bought it for and have never used it. Didn't think that I would steam kuih in this but I did and the shape is not bad at all.



This is the mould that I used.


Ingredients:
150g sago pearls
80g - 90g freshly grated coconut + salt to taste
1 tbsp water
80g gula melaka (chopped up)

Method:
1. Wash sago pearls, soak for 15 minutes then strain.
2. Add grated coconut, salt and water to the sago pearls, mix well.
3. Spoon 1.5 tablespoon of sago mixture into mould, add in 1 teaspoonful of gula melaka, top it up with 1 tablespoon of sago mixture.
4. Steam on high heat for 30 minutes or till cooked.

Kuih Kosui

I like Nyonya kuih very much and Kuih Kosui is of one of them. I really would love to make them more often but it is pretty hard to get freshly grated coconut here. I have to get one of those coconut with husks and everything all in from the wet market. Then with the help of my domestic helper, she potong away all the woody parts and grate manually with a very primitive grater (see photo below) borrowed from another Filipino domestic helper.

I search the net for Kuih Kosui recipe and could only find about three and they are nearly all the same. I chose Amy Beh's as my reference.

Being the naughty one, I replaced some of the rice flour with glutinous rice flour to get a more chewy texture and added a tablespoonful of santan powder to enhance the flavour of the gula melaka. I'm not sure if this is the texture sold by the famous stores in SG but I do like what I made today.



Close-up of the kuih.


This is the implement that I used to grate the fresh coconut.
See the teeth, that's where you put the white part of the coconut to be grated.



Recipe reference : Amy Beh


Ingredients: (24 pieces in small Chinese tea cups)
(A)
300g gula Melaka (palm sugar)
500ml water
1 tbsp santan powder
2 pandan leaves, cut into 8 cm pieces

(B)
100g tapioca flour
160g rice flour
20g glutinous rice flour
500ml water
3/4 tsp alkaline water

(C)
1/2 freshly grated coconut
1/2 tsp salt

Method:
1. Cook (A) in a saucepan and bring it to a boil to dissolve the sugar. Strain for any lumps and leave aside to cool.
2. Mix everything in (B) together till a smooth batter is formed. Add in the gula melaka syrup and cook over low heat till the batter is slightly thickened. Stirring constantly.
3. Steam the freshly grated coconut for 8 minutes. Leave it aside for use later.
4. Pour batter into greased small Chinese tea cups or a square cake pan. Steam over boiling hot water for about 15 minutes for the teacups or 40 minutes for the cake pan.
5. Cool the Kuih Kosui before you unmould them from the tea cups.
6. Coat them with the steamed coconut and serve.

Jemput-jemput Pisang

I had 2 ripe and nicely speckled large bananas sitting in my fruit bowl, seeing this my hands start to itch. I wanted to make/bake something out of these. Banana yoghurt poppy seeds muffins ... Banana bread ... Banana Walnut cake ... lots of recipes cross my mind. At the end of the recipe bombardment session, I was left with little time before my dds come home from school for tea break. With a quick turn of mind, I decided to make these hassle free little crispy and delicious pisang nuggets.

Pisang is a Malay word for banana.

This is a really "quick n easy" to do and yet delicious Malaysian snack. Guess everyone knows how to make this but I still like the following recipe best.



Ingredients:
250g - 300g mashed banana
less than 1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla essence
3 tbsp sugar
145g plain flour
3 tbsp rice flour
3/4 tsp baking powder

corn oil for frying

Method:
1. Mix all the ingredients together till well blended.
2. Heat up wok with some cooking oil.
2. Spoon batter with 2 wet spoons to form a ball shape and fry till crispy and golden brown.

Ondeh-Ondeh

This is one of the South East Asian delicacies that few could resist, I don't know about you but I'm one of them.

Ondeh-ondeh is a tiny ball like item coated with white furry grated coconut. When you sink your teeth into this little ball you could feel the burst of molten gula melaka and this is so tantilising to the palate.

For me to make this, is a little tedious as freshly grated coconut is not easy to come by in HK. Today I was craving for ondeh-ondeh so, I trotted (actually I took a cab and it costs me HK$50) all the way to Wanchai in search of freshly grated coconut. Finally found a SE Asian grocery shop that sells all kinds of spices and coconut stuff. Bought a pack of freshly grated coconut for HK$7 (minimum purchase) and a pack of gula melaka for HK$16. Oh! Please buy those gula melaka that is softer in texture otherwise, you will have a hard time chopping them into pieces.

Armed with all these, I went home and plunge straight into my ondeh-ondeh project. Bearing in mind what my aunt told me about good ondeh-ondeh, I chose to do equal amount of sweet potato to glutinous rice flour and the end result is good. The ondeh-ondeh is soft even when cold (I mean at room temperature for a few hours).

See the molten gula melaka ... so inviting!
I sank my teeth into that...kekeke!






Ingredients: (20 pieces of 20g each)
150g steamed sweet potato
150g glutinous rice flour
6 tbsp water or more
1 tsp corn oil
chopped pieces of gula melaka
freshly grated coconut

Method:
1) Steam the sweet potato until soft.
2) In a bowl, mash the sweet potato, add in the glutinous rice flour, water and oil.
3) Knead till a smooth dough is formed. You can add more water if the dough is dry.
4) Chop gula melaka into bite size pieces.
5) Divide dough into 20g each and wrap in the gula melaka.
6) Put the wrapped balls into a big pot of boiling water.
7) Fish them out when the ball floats.
8) Toss them on to a plate filled with grated coconut and coat all around the balls.
9) Eat them and enjoy the burst of molten gula melaka!

Notes:
I did not add pandan paste into my ondeh-ondehs but you can add pandan paste to make it more fragrant.
Adjust water accordingly as some sweet potatoes are drier while others have a higher level of moisture.
My ondeh-ondehs are about 3.5cm in diameter but you can make them into any size that you desire.
Try to get the softer type of gula melaka, otherwise it will hard to chop them.

Cassava Kueh

What is Cassava?

Cassava, Manihot esculenta Crantz, is a perennial woody shrub with an edible root, which grows in tropical and subtropical areas of the world. It is also called yuca, tapioca, manioc, and mandioca. It is not recommended to eat cassava uncooked, because of potentially toxic concentrations of cyanogenic glucosides that are reduced to innocuous levels through cooking.


Cassava is the basis of many products, including food. In Africa and Latin America cassava is mostly used for human consumption, while in Asia and parts of Latin America it is also used commercially for the production of animal feed and starch-based products.

Cassava or Tapioca Kueh is a very popular SE Asian delight. Bought some fresh cassava from the wet market this morning so tried my hands on this delish. This kueh is one of my favourites but it is not easy to get the right texture and flavour.
I was not satisfied doing just the plain steamed version so I consulted Patricia Lee's recipe for this kueh.
The end result is not bad with soft aromatic bananas between layers of chewy textured cassava.



Ingredients: (20cm round pan)
1 kg finely grated cassava
150g coconut milk
50g skim milk
3 tbsp pandan juice
1 tbsp sago flour
220g sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 large bananas thinly sliced

Method:
1. Put finely grated cassava into a muslin bag, squeeze out juice under running tap.
2. Mix coconut milk, skim milk, pandan juice, sago flour, sugar and salt together in a big mixing bowl.
3. Stir in the cassava till well mixed. Divide mixture into 3 portions.
4. Line pan with banana leaf, pour in one portion of the cassava mixture, smooth the surface and top up with sliced bananas. Repeat with the second portion of cassava mixture and finally top up with the last portion of the cassava mixture.
5. Steam on high heat for 40 - 50 minutes.
6. Cut the cake into slices when cool and serve with freshly grated coconut.

Kueh Salat

This kueh is a favourite of mine. I like anything with glutinous rice be it sweet or savoury. I know alot of friends like this kueh too! The last time I had this was in December 2004 from Bengawan Solo. Was talking to my sister about this kueh last night and she gave me this recipe to try.
The kueh is nice but don't over indulged...look at the amount of coconut milk used.



Ingredients: (18cm round springform pan)
Rice Layer
200g glutinous rice (soak in water for 5 hours)
100ml coconut milk + 50ml water
2 pandan leaves
1/2 tsp salt

Egg Custard Layer
3 eggs
30g flour + 25g rice flour
350ml coconut milk
140g castor sugar
2 tbsp pandan juice
1/4 tsp pandan paste
1/4 tsp salt

Method:
1. Drain rice and steam on pandan leaves for 20 minutes.
2. Remove from heat, fluff up the rice with a pair of chopsticks and pour in the coconut milk + salt + water mixture . Mix well. Steam for a further 20 minutes or till cooked.
3. Remove pandan leaves and press cooked glutinous rice firmly onto a lined pan. I lined my pan with baking paper. You can line it with a sheet of banana leaf.
4. Sieve the 2 flours mixture and add them to lightly beaten eggs. Strain mixture.
5. Combine coconut milk with pandan juice, salt and sugar. Cook over low heat till sugar dissolved. Stir in the egg mixture and cook till slightly thicken.
6. Pour this slightly thickened egg custard over the steamed glutinous rice and steam for 15 - 20 minutes.
7. Cut kueh into serving slices when cool.

Notes:
I added pandan paste to give it a nice jade color.

Ang Koo Kuehs

Ang Koo Kuehs! They are popular Nonya Kuehs in South East Asia. Don't know why they are called Ang Koo Kuehs but if you break it up word for word ... Ang means red color; Koo means turtle, yes, turtle as in turtle and Kuehs means cakes. From the photo you can see that the shape of this kueh is like a turtle, maybe that's how they derived the name for this kueh.
The red kueh has red coloring added to it while the yellow kueh is the natural color from the sweet potatoes that I used.
Sally! If you are still following my blog, this is the Ang Koo Kueh recipe that you asked me about. Hope you will like it and have fun doing them.

Red and natural Ang Koo Kuehs.


This is the Ang Koo Kueh mould that I used.


Ingredients: 25 small kuehs
Sweet Potato Skin:
200 g sweet potatoes
300 g glutinous rice flour
2 tbsps oil
160 ml water
Some red coloring (optional)

Mung Bean Filling:
200g yellow split mung beans (soaked until soft)
80g - 100 g castor sugar
½ tsp salt
2 tbsps oil
1/4 - 1/2 cup diced shallots
Water

Method:

Sweet Potato Skin:
Steam the sweet potatoes until soft. In a bowl, mash the sweet potatoes with a fork. Add glutinous rice, oil and water and mix well to obtain a smooth dough. Cover with a damp cloth and leave aside. You can add a little more water if the dough is too dry.

Mung Bean Filling:
Steam the yellow split mung beans until soft. Mash with a fork. In a non-stick wok, fry the diced onions in oil. Leave aside to cool. In a bowl, mix the mashed split peas, salt, fried onions, oil and enough water to form a soft dough.

Shaping the Ang Koo Kueh:
1. Brush the ang koo kueh mould with a little oil to ease removal of the kueh from the mould.
2. Take a small lump of sweet potato dough and using your palm or a rolling pin, flatten it, into a round shape with the centre thicker than the sides.
3. Spoon some pea filling into the dough, pinch the sides of the dough together, and using the palm of your hand, roll it into a ball.
4. Press the ball into the mould firmly, to obtain the design and shape of the mould. Tap the mould gently on the table to remove the ang koo kueh from the mould.
5. Place the ang koo kueh on a square piece of oiled banana leaf.
6. When all the ang koo kuehs are shaped, steam them in a wok over high fire for 3 minutes covered. After 3 minutes, remove the cover to release steam, then re-cover and steam for another 3 minutes over a medium fire, until the kuehs are cooked. Remove the kuehs from the wok and brush them with a little oil to prevent them from sticking to each other. Serve when cool.

Notes:
If you don't like the mung beans, you can use peanuts or red beans filling.
I used about 26g pastry and 19g filling.

Coconut Kueh Lapis

前兩日做了椰汁紅豆糕還剩下一點椰汁，所以今天就用它來做了一個超迷你的椰汁九層糕。好迷你啊！大概只有一個飯碗的大小 - 12 cm。

這糕點是我小時候最愛吃的， 一邊吃一邊把那九層糕一片片的撕下，太好玩了！



材料 (19 X 29 cm 長方型糕)
木薯粉 250g (Tapioca Starch)
粘米粉 90g (Rice Flour)
椰汁 400ml (Coconut milk)
砂糖 200g (Sugar)
暖水 200ml (Warm water)
班蘭汁 1/2茶匙 (Pandan Essence/paste)
紅色素少許 (Red Colouring)

做法:
1. 將全部材料混合攪勻， 分開 3 份糊槳。每一份大約是 320ml 。
Mix all ingredients together and divide batter into 3 equal portion of about 320ml each.

2. 一份加入班蘭汁，另一份加入紅色素。
Add pandan essence to one portion and red coloring to another portion.

3. 糕盤放入蒸鍋，倒 入一層糊槳 (約 100 - 110 ml) 蒸 3 - 4 分鐘 (不可超過 4 分鐘。) 重覆 3 種糊槳至蒸完，總共有 九 層。
Pour 1 layer of batter (about 100 - 110ml) into mould and steam on high heat for 3 - 4 minutes. Alternate the different colours till you finish all the batter.

4. 最後一層蒸 5 分鐘後熄火。
Steam the last layer for at least 5 minutes.

5. 待涼後，用保鮮紙包着一把膠刀切成小塊即可進食。
When the cake is cool, cut it with a plastic knife that is wrapped with glad wrap.

*** 如果你也想做一個迷你版的，只要把所有材料的份量 x 0.4 就可以了！ 每一層大約是 40- 45 ml 左右。 迷你版也夠一家四口吃哦！