Kuih Koci Pulut Hitam 鸡脚指~ Black Glutinous Rice Dumpling with Coconut

Kuih Koci is a chewy dumpling wrapped in banana leaf, with sweet coconut filling. The 'skin' can come in green, purple or white, depending on the ingredients used.

The Cantonese community here calls this as 鸡脚指 'gai geok jee' that means Chicken Claws. It's just a nickname due to the similarity in the sound 'Kuih Koci' with 'Gai Geok Jee'. I'm not sure if there are any other names for this kuih.

Kuih Ketayap

This kuih goes by many names

Kuih Ketayap
Kuih Dadar
Kuih Gulung
and my ex students from Selancar calls them kuih hijau

Malaysian school's home science textbooks calls this kuih ketayap.
Period.

Sweet Coconut Filling

In Malaysian kuih, this filling is one of the basics.

It is used in various types of kuih, so many that I can't name them all.
Besides in kuih, we also find this filling in buns.

Kelantan Beef Floss ~ Serunding Daging - Kelantan MFF #6

Beef serunding or beef floss is a Kelantan specialty. Some also call it as beef sambal or sambal daging in the Malay language. It is said that a properly made serunding can be kept for a year without referigeration.

I was itching to try making this, but was hesitating and hesitating and hesitating.
Finally I did, just last week! LOL.
I can't stop thinking about all these Kelantanese delights because they all reminded me of my lovely holiday there many years ago.

Akok Kedut Kelantan- MFF Kelantan #5

My favourite Kelantanese kuih!
Akok kedut is translated as Wrinkly Akok. Because on the east coast, Terengganu's akoks are smooth : )
And there are many types of akok too.

When I told my Kelantanese colleagues from Selancar that I loved Jala Mas, they recommended that I try eating akok and it's even better. Hmmmm....

One day, during Ramadan  Bazaar in Serdang, Selangor, I saw some  akoks being sold. So I bought some.
URRGHHHHH! It was disgusting! It tasted like a soggy cake, almost a syrup soaked bahulu that reeked of imitation essence. Eeewww!

Lompat Tikam ~Jump and Stab??? - MFF Terengganu #3

This Terengannu dessert is not for the faint hearted. It's called "Jump and Stab". Yes, that's what it means in the Malay language. LOL.

I'm just pulling your leg. It's a dessert for anyone. No violence incurred during the preparation and nothing happened when I ate it, except mourn with pleasure. LOL.

Kelantan state has their own version that comes with a red glutinous rice and the coconut milk component is more liquidy like a curd sauce. So, please do not be confused.

Palm Sugar No Bake Char Siu - Bellygood # 3

My husband's family are big Char Siu lovers.

Last year early in October, I organized a dinner over at my home for some close relatives who missed our house warming party and cooked 5 dishes 1 soup. I had no help this time, so I must plan my menu carefully. Since this pork dish is the favourite of many who will be coming and I can cook this ahead of time, I decided to make this. It's perfect because I will  have time for other dishes that needs to be cooked as near to dinner time as possible.

Sometime ago I saw two bloggers (Lena and HKChoo) making char siu with palm sugar with the same recipe from a local magazine. I wonder how is the taste like..

So I substituted the regular sugar in the recipe that I have been using all the time to palm sugar and added in pandan leaves in place of Chinese rose wine for the smell factor.

Candied Coconut - White sugar version

I made candied coconut with gula melaka (palm sugar) way back in 2008. I was very very satisfied with the result. So, with another blogger meet-up coming up (I'm the last to blog about it, so I'll not go into the details, you can read about it at Sonia's, Swee San's, Reese's and Pei Lin's), it's a good chance for me to make this again, since making too little is a bit too wasteful and too much for personal comsumption is not a good idea :)
Good things are meant to be shared, HAHAHAHAH!! Don't ever get fat alone, LOL.

So, you must be wondering, where did I get my coconut flesh.
From the wet market!!

*
Long ago(20 yrs ago), we could only buy grated coconut from the market.
*
Sometime back then (about 15 yrs ago) , we could buy freshly squeezed coconut milk from the market, and it's made with coconuts that were halved and grated by holding the coconut halves against the electric grater, then the grated coconut is poured into a machine to get the milk out.
*
The latest : You won't find the electric grater with a sharp ball and a upright basin at the wet market.
What you will see is a grater that works like a paper shredder. Put the whole pieces of flesh in the upright feeding hole, and what comes out is finely grated coconut. Then the grated coconut is then poured into the extrator and milk comes out :) The latest method is a lot lot faster!
*

So, what does this has to do with where to get the coconut flesh pieces???
The answer is, get your coconut flesh pieces from the coconut milk vendor before they turn it into grated coconut. LOL. Sorry just being a bad joker here.



This time, I made 2 versions, the old palm sugar version and I tried out the old fashioned white sugar version.

Recipe is pretty easy

Just keep the ratio of sugar to coconut, 1: 2 and you'll be fine. Means, if you used 1kg coconut flesh, use 500gm sugar. And I mean cleaned peeled coconut. Not the initial weight that you bought from the market. Last time I used the weight I bought and ended up with too much sugar in the pot, a bit wasted.

So, here's how

Cook on medium heat until the whole pot of coconut looks watery and reduce to low heat to cook until totally dry. Stir and toss with chopsticks not spoon. Stirring is only needed occasionally until it looks almost dry, then it has to be all the time.

So, here's how the white one looks like immediately after cooking. Pretty dry right? And nope, the base is not burnt.

Not too difficult right?


And one thing, I want to share with you.
If you think that you want to buy the purest and best gula melaka to make this snack, DO NOT DO THAT!

The one above is the latest and the one below was done in 2008

Can you see the difference of my latest attempt with the old one?
One looks dry and one looks clumpy with sugar.
Last time, I used those light coloured palm sugar (light brown not Thai milky coloured ones), which are a lot less pure(made with added white sugar) and are harder.
Pure ones are soft and moist, crumbly when pressed and definately needs refrigeration, if not it'll sweat.
Using pure ones is a bad decision.
I forgot that raw sugars like this are acidic, and when it's acidic, the sugar won't dry properly and stayed in clumps. So in times like these, better buy the less pure stuff so that you can have dry dry coconut, not clumpy ones.


And if you're wondering what am I wearing in that pic? Looks frumpy... Well, it's a maternity dress.
Yes, I am almost 4 month preggers now and the baby's due early June.
I haven't been cooking or baking since early October (unless I have no choice), up until 2 days before the lastest blogger meet (just last week), and yeah, the blog is running with no baking and cooking in my kitchen and it could still run with daily posts until March, yes it's that crazy.
Baking and cooking mojo has been on super low gear during the 1st trimester and I'm glad it's back now.

But I won't be on high gear til very much later, I'm busy busy busy now, and hopefully by Jan, I'll be moving into my new house with a new oven and a few more new toys.

Palm Sugar Coconut Cream Sauce

I remember I said I won't be making any "Gan Sui Joong" this year, which are plain alkaline/lye water rice dumplings.
But due to "family" demand, I made them, but plain with no fillings. Mom just loves these.

Again, I didn't use boric acid (pang sar) as the additive to make it bouncy. 

But this time I made this sauce to go with the dumplings. Usually it's plain palm sugar syrup. But I've added some coconut cream into this, just like making a caramel sauce, coconut cream instead of milk cream. Pandan leaf instead of vanilla bean, and palm sugar instead of brown or white sugar.

This is a recipe given by a neighbour, Mrs Teh, the wife of the good man who taught me to make Toddy Buns.
She taught me how to make this sauce when I was 13, for a "Gan Sui Gou" which means alkaline rice cake.
The palm sugar sauce was really nice and the secret ingredient is coconut cream, or thick coconut milk.

So, here's what I learnt from a dear neighbour

200gm palm sugar (here I used gula kabung, which is darker, you may use the regular gula melaka)
few blades of pandan leaves, shredded and tied into a knot.
100ml water
100ml thick coconut milk/cream
small pinch of salt (if prefer a salty tinge to anything coconut milk related, and I didn't put)

1. Cook palm sugar with water and pandan knot on medium low heat until melted.
2. Let the sugar syrup continue to cook until the whole surface is very bubbly, it may take about 3-5 minutes for the syrup to slowly reduce.
3. Pour in coconut milk and salt, stirring or swirling the pot all the while.
4. Then bring the sauce back to a boil, and let it simmer for 1 minute.
5. Strain sauce and serve with dumplings or any other kuih you may prefer.

** the sauce thickens slightly upon cooling down to room temperature, something like runny honey.

Oh, again this is not a backpost. Just made this yesterday at my hometown, Kampar.

Palm Sugar Chiffon Cake

I know I may not have invented this palm sugar chiffon cake, but this is my own version, adapted from Alex Goh’s chiffon cakes. Palm sugar or Gula Melaka Chiffon Cake.

This cake is rather sturdy, I’d say. I was away when this cake finished baking. I forgot about time.
When I came back, the oven was off, and luckily the chiffon cake stood still in its pan. I quickly inverted it. That’s why I have that dense line in the middle of the cake. If I did invert it immediately, it will have a perfect texture.

The gula Melaka smell isn’t that strong, coconut milk smell also seem sublime. If I don’t tell u that this is made with palm sugar and coconut milk, I don’t think u’d be able to guess. But Mike's relatives loved this and found this to me very aromatic. Different noses.. maybe I sniffed this cake to much while handling it, I was numbed by it. But whatever aroma it exudes, it has overpowered whatever eggy smell that high egg content cakes have. So, it’s still ok.

I will make this again.

Palm Sugar Chiffon Cake Recipe
4 egg whites
1/8 tsp salt
½ tsp cream of tartar
80gm sugar

4 egg yolks
2 Tbsp corn oil
200ml coconut milk
100gm palm sugar, cooked on low heat with 50ml water until dissolved.
150gm cake flour
1/3 tsp sodium bicarbonate

1. Preheat oven at 180/170(fan)C.
2. Combine cooked palm sugar with coconut milk. Set aside
3. Combine egg yolks with oil and half of (2).
4. Sift half of cake flour and sodium bicarb over (3). Mix well with a wire whisk.
5. Sift remaining cake flour and sodium bicarb over batter and mix. Whem mixture is all smooth, put in remaining (2).
6. In another clean bowl, beat egg whites with sugar until frothy. Add in Cream of tartar and beat until stiff. Add in sugar gradually and beat until really stiff.
7. Fold ¼ of beaten egg whites into (5), fold.
8. Repeat step 7.
9. Pour the whole batter into remaining egg whites and fold to combine.
10. Pour batter into a tube pan and bake for 40mins.
11. Invert immediately after removal from oven. Leave to cool overturned completely before removing from mould

Malaysian Palm Sugar or Gula Melaka, dark and aromatic.

Mung Bean Soup

Mung beans, or some call it green beans here, the direct ranslation from Kacang hijau or 禄豆.
Being Malaysians… we love our desserts laced with the fragrance of pandan… which differs it from our pre-migration ancestors.

My brother is one of those who can’t take mung beans. It evokes his asthma. Chinese says the mung bean is cooling to the body, and one of my friend, Candy Soo, told me, to boil this for 7 hours if u want to get rid of the cooling effect. 7 hours! Kill me, but do that if u want, in a slow cooker.

This mung bean soup uses palm sugar as one of its sweeteners….
Palm sugar + coconut milk = heavenly
And u may substitute the coconut milk here with evaporated milk/creamer, if u have probs with that nutty white extract.

I’m trying to stop all the guesstimation when cooking now….especially when it comes to desserts.

I’ve found that to make 1L of this soup, I need 100gm. Today I used 200gm, so I made 2L of it. Mung beans cook much faster than red beans, so it need not be soaked.

You may substitute the pandan fragrance by using 1 or 2 drops of vanilla.

200gm mung beans

2L water

Few blades of pandan, washed , torn into shreds, and tied into a knot.

100gm palm sugar

120gm sugar

½ cup thick coconut extract (abt ½ coconut)

My Pandan leaves are all wrinkled,
dried out in the fridge, but it's still usable.

1. Bing water to a boil, rinse mung beans and put them together with pandan knot into the boiling water.

2. Cover pot and simmer on low heat for 2 hours.

3. Bring it to high heat for 15 minutes, pot uncovered. Be there to watch. You might need to add some water if the water is greatly reduced.

4. Put in palm sugar and cook until it is completed melted. Taste and adjust with sugar according to preference.

5. Turn off heat and leave pot uncovered for 5 minutes. Put in coconut milk and stir.

6. Serve chilled or warm.

Bringing it to high heat for the last 15 minutes will bring out the starch in the bean, thus making the soup thicker w/o having too much beans in it.

You may put in tapioca/sago pearls in it if u want it even thicker. 2 Tablespoons is sufficient. But I find that when chilled, this soup will be way too thick with tapioca pearls. Don’t forget that mung beans contains starch of their own, unlike red beans/adzuki.

Cendol Agar-agar

This is for u, Melody. Hope it satisfies ur jelly craving! Baby in tummy will be happy!!!

I’ve tried making this many many years ago… and to my dismay, the cendol sets to the bottom(If urs are all on top, it means the agar solution is too hot when u added the cendol) I tried adding in some corn starch this time around, and the cendol ended up floating all over!

I’m happy!

*Note: If you're using store bought coconut milk, 1 coconut=200ml

Cendol Layer500ml water
170gm sugar
250ml water
1.5 Tbsp agar-agar powder (12.5gm)
extract from 1 coconut mixed with water totaling 250ml
small pinch of salt
30gm corn starch
500gm cendol (2 cups, drained) Make ur own cendol, see here

1) Mix agar powder with 250ml water, set aside.
2) Mix cornstarch, salt and coconut extract together, set aside.
3) Bring 500ml water and sugar to a boil. When solution has come to a boil, pour in agar mixture. 4) Bring a a boil again, lower heat and pour in cornstarch mixture, stirring all the while.
5) On medium heat , bring back to a boil. Remove from heat and put in drained cendol. Mix well.
6) Pour into a 10 inch square pan.

While the cendol layer is cooling down, do the brown layer.

Brown Layer
200gm gula Melaka (if using Thai palm sugar which is cream in colour, mix with some dark brown sugar to achieve colour)
500ml water
2 blades pandan, shredded and knotted
250ml water
1.5 Tbsp agar-agar powder (12.5gm)
extract from 1 coconut mixed with water totaling 250ml + small pinch of salt

i) Bring 500ml water, palm sugar and pandan knot to a boil and simmer until palm sugar has totally dissolved.
ii) Mix agar powder with 250ml water and pour into the pot. Bring to a boil again.
iii) Lower heat and pour in coconut extract, stirring all the while. When there are small bubbles on the side of the pot, remove pot from heat.
iv) Test cendol layer by touching surface. It should have slightly cooled and developed a film on top that does not stick to ur fingers, but should be wobbly. Pour in brown layer slowly, carefully using a sieve(there might be unwanted stuff in the palm sugar) and let it set and cool down.
v) Chill in fridge before cutting.

If your cendol layer has totally hardened, scar surface with a fork before pouring in brown layer.
You are free to do whichever layer first, But I like mine with the brown on top.

Or if u’re using agar-agar strips…
Do this…
Cook 25gm agar-agar strips with 1.5L water until totally dissolved. Divide agar solution into 2 parts.
Cook one part with the sugar and do step (4) to (6). While cooking the 1st part, keep the 2nd part warm.
Prepare the 2nd part of agar-agar solution by cooking it with palm sugar until dissolved. Do step (iii) to (v)



Lydia can't resist while looking at Mike photographing the jelly.
She must have one!

Pumpkin Jam 南瓜果酱

This is supposed to be pumpkin kaya. But Mike insisted it be called pumpkin jam. To him, kaya must have eggs, and when it’s eggless, it’s jam.

It smelt great when it was ready, the whole house smelt of kaya! But the aroma was somehow lost after being chilled in the fridge.
B4 it was chilled, it smelt coconutty, after chilled, pumpkiny. Still it was ok.
A bit more healthy than the eggy kaya.

Recipes online says just cook in a pan over flame, but with my experience in kaya making (I come from a family that’s been making kaya commercially for more half a century), short cooking time makes it more perishable. (I’ve bought homemade kaya that turned bad after a week even when it was in the fridge!! That’s pan cooked, guaranteed!) Kaya is supposed to be double boiled over a long period of time, so that the sugar will not crystallize and the coconut milk in it won’t spoil for days. The kaya my mom used to make can be kept for more than a week w/o refrigeration and it’s not even kept in sterilized jars. If refrigerated, try keeping it a year!

So, why didn’t I double boil it? Well, the slow cooker is like a double boiler, but keep it on low heat.
High heat during the first hour won’t spoil it, cos it’s really snail slow to heat things up in a slow cooker.

If u don’t have a slow cooker and want to double boil it, do it for 3 hours.
If u plan to finish the jam in a day or 2, by all means, cook it direct over flame. I can’t finish it that fast, so better cook it slowly…

1kg pumpkin flesh
100gm sugar (U can put more)
100gm palm sugar
350ml thick coconut milk
3 blades pandan leaves, knotted

1. Steam pumpkin flesh until soft. Puree with a blender or mash it up.
2. Mix pumpkin flesh with coconut milk, and both sugars.
3. Place mixture into a slow cooker together with pandan knot.
4. Cook on high for an hour, low for 2 hours.


It's almost a month since I made this, and the jam is still in good condition, sitting in my fridge. I purposely posted this late, to see how long the jam can last in the fridge.
Last week, I made buns with this pumpkin jam, and they tasted good!

Update 1 : The jam spoiled at 6 weeks. Well, can't be compared to my mom's original kaya, cos there's so much less sugar. But nonetheless, it didn't spoil within 1 week.. kekeke

Update 2 : My friend gave me feedback that her jam was still good for 7 weeks.

Candied Coconut - gula melaka 椰糖椰干

When I was in primary school, the canteen man sold candied coconut for 10sen a small pack.

Many years, I never came across this again.

Then, when I was in uni, I saw it in Petaling Street, wow , it’s turned into something pricey. Still bought it, cos I like it.

2 months after my daughter was born, I saw this again in SS2 pasar malam. And they don’t only have the regular white candied coconut, they even have a gula melaka version, which is palm sugar. This stall also sells candied ginger, lotus roots, and water chestnut.
And they are going for RM3.50 for small pack of 150gm. RM10 for 3 packs, but RM13.50 for 4 packs, weird way of marketing huh?? I bought 3 packs.

I saw in pwmf’s site on how to make candied coconut. But didn’t think that I’d make my own one day, cos it seemed too troublesome to remove the coconut flesh from the hard shell. Then I saw in Kuala Kangsar wet market’s coconut milk stall, there’s coconut flesh for sale. Yahooo!!! Bought 1 kg of it. I want to make it the night itself, substituting the white sugar that pwmf uses with gula melaka, adding in some pandan leaves for extra aroma. I was worried about the pot burning, but luckily it didn’t. Pwmf uses medium high heat until water evaporates, but I used low fire all the while… Scared ma!!!


Candied Coconut Recipe

1kg coconut flesh (without shell)
500 gm gula melaka (pounded or chopped)
Few blades of pandan leaves, shredded.

Trim coconut flesh to remove all brown skins, wash and slice into desired thickness,
Mix coconut flesh with pounded gula melaka, and let it bleed for a while.
Put everything into a heavy bottomed pot and cook until a thin layer of sugar powder coats the coconut.
Place coconut shreds onto a flat tray and let it cool down before putting it into an air tight container.

***
By using low heat all the time, it took me 1.5 hours, pot uncovered.

I find the amount of sugar a bit too much, as there were a lot of sugar dust on the bottom of the pot, so, the next time I’ll make this, I’ll just use 330gm. I used up the remaining sugar in the pot by making egg drop agar-agar.

Bubur Cha Cha 磨磨查查

This is the unofficial favourite dessert of many Malaysians.

Funny name, Bubur Cha Cha
Bubur means porridge in Malay, Cha Cha is...hmmm... no idea..
Will I do the Cha Cha dance after eating this dessert.... hehe.. maybe I will.
The cantonese pronunciation for this dessert is even funnier.. Mo Mo Cha Cha (touch touch, grasp grasp)

There are many variants of it, some with bananas, some with cassava or tapioca, some w/o the black eyed peas, some with those wriggly worm like multicolour rice flour bits, and I even heard a version with kuih bakul.

Some people find this dessert very time consuming to prepare, they say it's because one has to dice most of the main ingredients. I find that to be not much of a problem if one doesn't use a ruler to measure every cut the knife goes down on. The time consuming part is cooking the black eyed peas, that's the real problem, 3 hours and that's after soaking for another 3 hours!!!

This is a version commonly made by the Chinese in central Perak, with black eyed peas, taro (mistakenly refered as yam in msia), two types of sweet potatoes, fresh coconut milk, and sago pearls. And we (majority of central perakians) dun favour a salty bubur chacha, unlike our northern friends.



There is a missing ingredient... I dunno what it's called.. but I know it's made with tapioca starch, dyed red and made into squiggly chewy gummy jelly. I have no idea how it's made. The last time I had this gummy jelly in my bubur chacha was.. say.. 20 years back, made by my neighbour.

I make quite a big batch of this, cos I love to keep it in the fridge and eat it for days... it's really yummy.

Bubur Cha Cha recipe

Ingredients:
3/4 rice bowl of black eyed peas (mei dau, soaked for minimum 3 hours)
4 leaves of pandan (shredded and tied into a knot)
1.5 L water (about 6 rice bowls)

2.5L water (about 10 rice bowls)
1.5 rice bowl taro (cut into 1cm cubes)
1.5 rice bowl yellow sweet potato(cut into 1cm cubes)
1.5 rice bowl orange sweet potato(cut into 1cm cubes)
1/3 rice bowl fish eye sago pearls
1 1/2 Tbsp fish egg sago pearls

350 gm rock sugar or normal white sugar
150 gm gula melaka (palm sugar)

fresh coconut milk from 2 coconuts (about 4ooml undiluted)
1/2 tsp salt (to prevent the coconut milk from going bad fast, but not enough to turn the whole thing salty)

** Conversion: 1 rice bowl is approximately 1 cup 250ml

Method:
1. Boil 1.5L water, simmer black eyed peas and pandan knot on low fire for 2-3 hours or until peas are soft.
2. When peas are almost soft, put in fish eye sago pearls (Do not presoak them). Let them simmer together.
3. Cut taro, sweet potatoes and put them in together with 2.5L of water after peas are soft. Bring to a boil and lower down fire to simmer for 15 minutes.
4. Take out pandan knot. Sprinkle in fish egg sago pearls. Put in rock sugar and palm sugar. Simmer for another 10 minutes.
5. Turn off the fire, and leave pot uncovered for 5 minutes.
6. Pour in coconut milk and salt. Stir to combine. Wait for 15 minutes before putting lid back onto the pot. This is to prevent the coconut milk to turn oily.

** If you put in coconut milk too soon after turning off fire, it will curdle. If you put in too late, the whole thing will turn bad faster(hmm.. in 1-2 days, eventhough it's in the fridge) due to the coconut milk being `uncooked'. With properly cooked uncurdled coconut milk in the bubur chacha, I kept them in the fridge up to 5 days, and it tasted alright.

** I do not recommend purple sweet potatoes in this dessert. It makes the whole thing purple!!! A little overpowering on the colour. This is my personal opinion.