Mango Sago with Pomelo 杨枝甘露 - AFF HK Macau Desserts #1

Mango Sago Pomelo is a popular dessert from Hong Kong.

It is a dessert that is made of mango, tapioca or sago pearls, pomelo arils, coconut milk and evaporated milk or cream.

And usually, pomelos are one of the quintessential fruits for Chinese New Year because the name sound prosperous. Besides eating it fresh, you can turn it into this dessert. It'll be a good way to serve this fruit during this hot hot weather, or maybe for next year's celebration :)

Kampar Ice Kacang 金宝杂雪 - Perak MFF#7

Ice Kacang or some call ABC is a common dessert found all over Malaysia and Singapore. It may go with other names in other countries in this region. I call it Jaap Suut 杂雪  , like most Cantonese speaking Kamparians do.

Generally there's not much rules regarding Ice Kacang.. different shops uses different ingredients. The type of ingredients that I have encountered in all the ice kacangs I have eaten all over Malaysia range from roasted peanuts, attap chee, agar-agar cubes, coconut shreds, canned cocktail fruits, canned longans, lychees, kidney beans, or even preserved nutmeg fruit shreds. Just anything goes into this dessert and it's up to the seller's imagination to make.

But in Kampar, that is not the case.

Durian Cendol - MFF Melaka #3

I first had durian cendol more than14 years ago at Tan Kim Hock Melaka. Back then, it wasn't served in that fancy wasteful flower shaped carboard handled container. See here and here. I think now, San Shu Gong is more popular for this, and is served in a wasteful fancy durian printed cardboard handled container. Frankly I'm more comfortable without that handle thingy. It's a waste of money and resources. And the cost is just absorbed by the customer, us.

Homemade Cendol II



Colour enhanced with the presense of alkaline water

 I haven't been making cendol for a long long time. It's time now.

I have found the texture I like. The missing link was cornstarch, LOL. So common that anyone from anywhere can make this at home now. Before this I was asked many times about mung bean starch (green bean flour) saying it's not available in their countries. From my experience of making kuih tako of which cornstarch yields a softer texture, I thought, could I use cornstarch for cendol? I’m glad that this blog confirmed my thoughts for the use of cornstarch. Cendol made with only mung bean starch is too firm for my liking, a bit too “crispy”. Although traditional cendol is made with rice flour, it is brittle. So, when I tried using cornstarch, that was it!

I experimented in small batches by using only cornstarch and by mixing both cornstarch with bean starch. I prefer the latter.

Avocado Cream Shake- Avocado Week #1

Recipe created in Sept 2011

Do you love the Vietnamese avocado milk shake? I do.. really adore it.
But because I happen to have cream, I whacked up my avocadoes with cream instead of the usual condensed milk, and voila, almost ice cream like! Yummy!

Tub Tim Grob, Rubies in Coconut Milk Dessert

 

This is one dessert that you can use to wow your guest. The look of the water chestnuts look spectacular and when served in fancy glasses, they really do look nice. A red dessert looks good if you’re wearing black. Accessorizing!!! Hahaha. Red rubies they may be, but not wearable.

This is not my maiden attempt with the famous Thai dessert. I first tried making this a decade ago when I was staying with my chummies. They loved it, but I wasn’t all that successful cos the starch wasn’t sticking well to the water chestnuts. Then lately I read from the net that it’s spraying that makes the 2nd layer of starch adhere well and that’s how you make the starch really thick.I had some water chestnuts in the fridge, originally intended for a soup, but heck, what was I waiting for? Waiting for the day I could get jackfruit!!! Finally Saturday came, and I could get some from the local farmer’s market. This dessert will taste weird to me without jackfruit, cos it’s this sweet yellow flesh fruit that gives the dessert the super aroma.

Actually, in Ipoh, one can easily get this from the main wet market. It’s called “pomegranate seeds, 石榴子” instead. And it doesn’t come cheap. More than 15 years ago, I knew it was RM3/pack, about 1 cup’s amount with water!!! So, why not make this yourself. The instructions I give may seem long, but once you get the hang of it, it’s really easy peasy.

If you are serving this at a party, you can make this in advance, so, no rushing here and there on the day itself. You can make the coconut smoothie and freeze, and the red rubies can be made 1-2 days in advance (those sold can be kept for 2-3 days in the fridge)

Tub Tim Grob
Recipe source : Wendyywy
Serves 6-8

(A)
6 water chestnuts
½ tsp red food colouring (I prefer artificial cochineal here, which is slightly pinkish purplish, rather than red) or some beet root juice
1 tsp water (no need if beet root juice)
1 cup or more tapioca starch (Cornstarch will not be suitable)
Few pieces of jackfruit flesh, thinly sliced

(B)
125gm sugar
125gm water
1 pandan leaf, shredded and knotted

(C )
200ml thick coconut milk
750gm ice cubes

Method
1. To make syrup, bring B to a boil on medium heat, let it simmer for 2 minutes. Turn off the fire and let it cool down.
2. While waiting for the syrup to cool down, peel and cut the water chestnuts into 5mm cubes.
3. Mix food colouring with water and mix food colouring to the cut water chestnuts.

4. Put tapioca starch into a large bowl/basin. Pour all the dyed water chestnuts onto the starch.
5. Toss the basin/bowl so that the chestnuts will be evenly coated with the starch. Do not use a spoon to do this, but toss the whole basin.
6. Prepare a colander (not sieve) in another basin/plate. Pour all the water chestnuts and starch into colander and sift to separate extra starch from the coated water chestnuts. Remember to use the basin to collect extra starch.

7. Pour water chestnuts into a plate. Spread it out and lightly spray with water to moisten the water chestnuts. Toss and spray again. Repeat until you see the surface looks moistened but not wet.

8. Pour water chestnuts back into collected starch and toss and sift again. If you want a thicker layer of starch, repeat the spraying and tossing in flour again.

9. Let starch coated water chestnuts sit for half an hour. (So that the outer layer of starch may absorb moisture from the water chestnuts, it will stick better**)

10. Meanwhile, prepare coconut smoothie. Pour half the ice, half the syrup and half the coconut milk into a blender, and whizz til fine. Pour coconut smoothie into a freezable container. Repeat whizzing with balance of ice, syrup and coconut milk. Put coconut smoothie into freezer while you do the rest.

11. Bring a pot of water to boil. Prepare a big bowl of ice water.

12. Pour in all the coated water chestnuts, stir gently immediately for a while so that the chestnuts will not clump together and let it boil on high heat for 1 minute.

13. Remove water chestnuts from boiling water by using a slotted skimmer and put into ice water immediately.

14. Let it sit in the ice water for 10 minutes or longer.*** Stirring gently once a while to break up the "rubies"
15. Meanwhile, slice the jack fruit.
16. To serve, put some coconut smoothie into serving bowl, top with sliced jackfruit and "rubies". Serve immediately.

** I made this twice in a day. The first trial, by the time I wanted to boil the chestnuts, the gas ran out. So I called for gas and it arrived half an hour later. My 2nd batch, coated with starch 3 times were boiled immediately after the 3rd sifting. Comparatively, the 1st batch had a nicer starch coating, although it was only floured twice. Then I came to think of it, yeah, letting it sit for a while will make the moisture seep out and make the tapioca starch stick better to the water chestnut.

*** I also found that by letting it sit longer in ice water, the starch expands to wrap the chestnut better. No wonder those sold in Ipoh looked so thick with starch. They were sold in water filled packs, like cendol.

 

Honey Sea Coconut

Feeling hot??? Need some quick dessert after dinner?

1. Grab a can of honey sea coconut
2. Place some into a bowl.
3. Top it with some crushed ice (or vice versa with step 2)
4. Squeeze the juice of a calamansi lime over, and you have your honey sea coconut ice ready.

Easy??? 

No more excuse of not trying out anything from my blog :)

Mango Smoothie

Easy Peasy...

I've got these oh-so ripe Chukanan Mangoes in the fridge...... and these oh-so ripe mangoes taste fabulous in smoothies.. but not eaten in its raw form.

500gm mango flesh
250gm ice
2 Tbsp sugar

Just whizz them up in a blender/liquidizer or a food processor.
If u can't finish it, just freeze it (b4 they have totally melted away) to make easy mango sorbet, no cranking needed.

I just love this.... yum yum

Homemade Cendol

For you, Yuan Horng. Hope u can make it in the US. ;)

This is a Malay dessert , served with palm sugar syrup and coconut milk. When I was small, I used to think that it's made of worms! Well, they do look like green worms, wriggling around. Of course, I still ate them, worms or not.

The Singapore version uses only green bean flour. But the Malaysian version uses rice flour, or maybe mixed with some tapioca starch. Tapioca starch is more stretchable, whereas green bean flour gives the cendol a slightly springy texture.

So, if u can’t find green bean flour, u can just substitute it with tapioca/cassava starch.

Cendol is usually pressed with a cendol press, that looks like a murukku press, but not everybody has one at home. Or some use a metal bowl pricked with holes, or some homemade cendol use the holey ladle. The holey ladle makes the cendol short and stout. I like mine long and slender. I used to do this with the cookie press (with the piece with many small holes on)I need to think of a way that everybody can make this at home with easy to get apparatus.
And Ah!!!! I got it, a clean durable food grade plastic bag!

½ cup rice flour
½ cup green bean flour
3 cups pandan juice (1 cup loosely packed pandan leaves(washed, snipped with scissors), blended with 3 cups water, strained. If fresh pandan juice is not available, just use 2 tsp green pandan paste/essence with 3 cups of water)
1/4 tsp alkaline water

Prepare a basin of ice water. Mix the above ingredients together and cook on low heat until mixture thickens and turns glossy.
Fill mixture into a ziplock bag, snip off a small corner about 2-3mm (don't do it too big, it'll get bigger after being squeezed for some time). By using oven mittens, squeeze mixture out from bag, dropping into the ice water. Don't work slow, the mixture solidifies quite quickly!
When the cendol mixture has all been squeezed into the ice water, keep cendol in fridge together with the ice water.





5/5/09: I'm going to try other flour combinations, and will post whichever is the best. The flour composition in this post is less hard(when cold) compared to pure green bean flour cendol.

24/11/09: I tried using half tapioca starch with half rice flour. The result was DISASTROUS!! The cendol will melt. *sigh