Purple Kaya Kuih (Kuih Pulut Tartar)

Ingredients:

100 g glutinous rice
25-40 ml coconut milk
2/3 tsp salt
1/2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp purple sweet potatoes cubes
1 tbsp water

Kaya for serving

Method:

Rinse rice with water and soak overnight in fridge, drained.

Steam purple sweet potato cubes with a spoonful water for 20 min, reserve the purple water.

Pour 2/3 rice into one steaming tray and 1/3 rice wetted with few drops of purple water into another tray, steam at low flame for at least 20min or until the rice is softened, stirred twice in between.

Dissolve salt and sugar into coconut milk and mix 2/3 part into white portion and 1/3 into the purple portion, steam for another 10 min or until rice is cooked throughly.

Remove rices from steamer and mix two portions into a baking paper lined tray, give a few stirs with chopsticks.

Press the rices strongly with palm to a smooth texture, press with a heavy container on top and set aside to cool until set.

Cut into bite size with wetted knive and serve with kaya （pandan coconut jam）

Yields 6 pieces kaya kuih

Kuih Talam

Ingredients:

Pandan Layer (Green bottom):

80 g rice flour

40 g tapioca flour

30 g green bean flour

230 g sugar

700 mL pandan juice (or 700 mL + 1/2 tsp pandan essence) 

1 tsp alkaline water (air lye)

Coconut Layer (White top):

60 g rice flour

75 g tapioca flour

300 g coconut milk

300 mL water

1½ tsp salt

Method:

To prepare the pandan layer:

In a heat resistance mixing bowl, mix all ingredients of bottom layer together, except lye water.

Stir over double boiler to thicken the batter (about 15-20 mins).

Remove from double boiler and stir-in lye water to incorporate well.

Pour onto a 20 cm baking pan or deep plate and steam covered over boiling water with high heat for about 20 mins or until almost firm to touch.

To prepare the coconut layer:

In another bowl, mix well all the ingredients of top layer together.

Pour onto the top of the almost set pandan layer.

Continue to steam covered for another 10 mins or until both layers are cooked and firm to touch.

Remove from heat and leave to cool in pan.

With wet knife, cut the dessert to serving bites

Serve it hot, cold or at room temperature.

Oven Baked Kuih Kapit (Love Letters)

Thanks Erin for the beautiful season's greetings card all the way from Malaysia...Happy Birthday & Happy Chinese New Year !!!

Ingredients:

1/3 cup egg (from 1 egg)
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup thick coconut milk
1/8 cup water
1/3 cup rice flour
1/4 tsp tapioca flour

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 °C.

Grease a rough surface non-stick tart or cake pan with butter and preheat it in the oven.

In a large bowl, whisk egg with sugar till sugar dissolves.

Pour-in coconut milk and water, stir to incorporate well.

Add-in flours and whisk to smooth batter.

Remove pan from oven.

Spread 1 tbsp of batter onto the heated pan circularly (about 8 cm in diameter) and allow batter to spread out thin by it own for short while.

Return pan to oven and bake for 6-8 minutes or until golden in color.

Remove from oven, immediately remove thin kuih from hot pan, start from all edges, fold straight into a quarter, press lightly with a light object to level the surface while cooling till set.

Allow to cool completely before storing into an airtight container.

Yields 23 kuih kapit.

Kuih Rose/Loyang (Crispy Honecomb Cookies)

Ingredients:

1 ¼ cups rice flour

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1 egg
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
20 mL coconut milk
80 mL water

oil for deep-frying

Method:

In a bowl, mix well rice flour and all purpose flour; set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk egg with sugar and salt till sugar dissolves.

Pour-in coconut milk and water, stir to incorporate fully.

Add-in flours mixture, whisk to smooth batter; set aside.

Heat enough oil in wok or deep pan over medium heat.

Preheat mold by dipping in the hot oil for a while (important).

Transfer small amount of batter into a narrow cup.

Remove mold from oil, dip hot mold into the batter up to almost reach top surface, return coated mold into the hot oil, hold it for short while (may counts to 5), shake mold up and down within oil to drop shaped soft cookies from mold (may use fork to fasten the process).

Deep fry cookies till golden in color.

Drain cookies on absorbent paper and leave to cool completely on wire rack before storing into an airtight container.

Yields 52 cookies.

Kuih Bangkits (Tapioca Cookies)

Thanks to YY for this lovely Swiss Watch...I like it very much...Happy Chinese New Year !!!

Ingredients:

2 cups tapioca flour
1 pandan leaves (fragrant screwpine), roughly cut
1/3 cup egg (from 1 egg)
1/3 cup sugar
1/12 cup coconut milk

Method:

In a heat resistance pot or wok, dry-fry flour together with pandan leave for about 15 minutes, remove from heat, discard leave and set aside to cool completely.

Preheat oven to 160 °C.

Line a big baking tray with parchment paper; set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk egg with sugar till turn to milk white, thick, glossy and sugar is fully dissolves.

Pour the egg solution into cooled flour, follow by coconut milk and knead to smooth stiff dough.

In between two pieces of plastic wrapper, roll out dough flat by using rolling pin to the thickness of 1 cm.

Cut dough accordingly with cookies cutter and gashes cookies upper surface with knives.

Alternatively (traditionally), lightly flour a cookies wooden mold, press a smooth dough ball into mold and tilt out cookies carefully.

Place shaped cookies onto the prepared tray and bake cookies in the preheated oven for 25 minutes or until aroma and cooked through (cookies should remain whitish in color).

Remove from oven, transfer onto wire rack and set aside to cool completely before storing into an airtight container.

Yields 36 cookies.

Spiral Curry Puffs with Sweet Potato Curry Filling

Ingredients:

Curry Sweet Potato Filling:

1 medium sweet potato, diced
1 onion, diced
2 ½ tbsp curry powder
1/2 tbsp sambal omelek chili paste
1/4 tsp sugar or to taste
1/4 tsp salt or to taste
1/4 tsp white pepper or to taste
1/2 cup water
2 tbsp oil

Pastry:

Outer/Water Dough
2 cups all purpose flour
1/6 tsp salt
15 g butter
1/2 cup water

Inner/Oil Dough
1 cup all purpose flour
70 g butter

oil for deep-frying

Method:

Filling:

Heat oil in wok or non-stick pan, stir-fry onion till fragrant and golden brown.

Add-in sweet potatoes cubes, stir-fry for another 2 minutes.

Add-in curry powder and chili paste, stir-fry still fragrant (about 1 minute).

Pour-in water, stir for short while to incorporate.

Add-in salt and pepper, continue stir fry till sweet potato is soften, cooked thoroughly and the gravy is thicken (almost dry).

Remove from heat and leave aside to cool.

Pastry:

Water Dough:

Mix flour, salt and butter in a large bowl, knead thoroughly.

Add-in water and continue the kneading process till form a smooth dough; set aside covered to rest for 30 minutes.

Oil Dough:

Mix flour and butter, knead till dough is smooth and soft, leave to rest covered for 30 minutes.

Assembly:

Roll out both water dough and oil dough into long sausage shape and divide each dough into 6 portions.

Roll out a piece of water dough, fill-in a piece of oil dough and wrap up to form dough ball.

Flatten, roll out flat and roll up into a swiss roll.

Repeat the rolling and flattening process for three times.

For the last roll up into a swiss roll, cut dough roll into two pieces with a sharp knife.

Face the cut side down, flatten and roll out to form a circular pastry.

Place enough filling in the center and fold pastry over to make a half circle, pleat the edges to seal.

Repeat the assembly process for the rest of doughs' pieces.

Deep-fry over high heat until golden brown.

Drain on absorbent paper and best serve warm.

Yield 12 pieces of spiral curry puffs.

Crystal Skin Chives Dumplings (Koo Cai Kuih/韭菜粿)

Ingredients:

Chives Filling:

1 tbsp vegetable oil (I used shallot oil but garlic oil, sesame oil or other cooking oil work fine too)
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup dried shrimp, soaked and drained
3 cups diced Chinese chives (about 1 cm length)

Crystal Skin Pastry:

1 ½ cup wheat starch
1/4 cup tapioca starch
1/2 salt
300 mL boiling water
3 tsp shallot oil/lard/garlic oil/sesame oil

Method:

To prepare the filling:

Heat oil in a wok or pan over moderate high heat, stir-fry garlic till fragrant and golden yellow.

Remove from heat and let to cool to room temperature.

Reserve 2 tbsp garlic oil for dumplings surface brushing and mix the remaining garlic oil with the rest of the filling ingredients, stir-well to incorporate; set aside.

To prepare the pastry:

In a large bowl, mix wheat starch, tapioca starch and salt.

Pour-in boiling water and immediately stir to mix by the help of chopstick to form dough, set aside to rest for 5 minutes.

Knead dough till smooth and homogeneous texture.

Add-in fragrant oil and knead to incorporate homogeneously.

Divide dough into 18 equal portions and shape to dough balls.

Cover dough balls with moist towel before start to assembly dumplings.

Dumplings assembly:

Lightly grease a surface of large plastic wrapper.

Plate-on a dough ball, flatten with oily hand palm and press outward evenly from center of the pastry to about 3 mm thickness by oily fingers.

Alternatively, cover dough ball with another piece of greased plastic wrapper, rolling out dough ball thin via rolling pin.

Lift up carefully the pastry by the help of greased thin spatula or knife and place-on oily hand palm.

Put-on enough chives filling in the middle of the pastry, fold-up pastry in half, press well all edges to seal and pleat accordingly to shape.

Place the filled dumplings on parchment paper and steam over high heat for about 8 minutes.

Remove from heat and immediately brush-on the reserved garlic oil.

Best serve hot immediately with chili sauce.

Ban Jian Kuih (Peanut Pancake)

Ingredients:

1 cup plain flour
1/4 cup rice flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp potassium carbonate & sodium bicarbonate solution
2 tsp oil
1 cup milk/water

Filling:

2 tbsp toasted peanut coarse
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp butter

Method:

In a large bowl, combine together the flours, sugar, baking powder and salt.

Add-in potassium carbonate & sodium bicarbonate solution and oil.

Mix well to a smooth batter; set aside covered for at least 2 hours.

Lightly grease a nonstick pan (22 cm in diameter).

Heat the pan over medium heat.

Pour-in all batter, evenly spread the batter via pan swirling or by using ladle.

Once batter turns to translucent (about 5 minutes), sprinkle-on peanut, sugar and butter.

Cook covered for even heating for 15 minutes or till bottom surface become golden brown.

Remove cover, release all sides of pancakes with spatula.

Remove pancake and fold immediately into half; set aside to cool for about 10 minutes.

Cut into triangle shape and serve hot.

Kuih Seri Ayu/Puteri Ayu (Snowy Mountains Mini Cakes)

Ingredients:

2 eggs
Sugar half of eggs by volume
1/2 tsp ovallet
2 1/2 tbsp flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
small pinch of green coloring/1/2 tsp pandan (fragrant screwpine) paste
Oil for molds greasing

Coconut Topping:

1/2 cup desiccated coconut/fresh grated coconut
1 tbsp water/coconut milk
1/2 tsp corn flour
1/4 tsp salt

Method:

Dissolve salt and corn flour in water, pour over coconut and mix well.

Lightly grease molds with oil.

Press-in 1 heap tsp of coconut mixture into the base of molds (add more as desired), press firmly with finger; set aside.

Mix flour with baking powder; set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk eggs with sugar, ovallet and green coloring till pale, thick and fluffy.

Fold-in flour mixture, stir batter to incorporate.

Spoon batter into the prepared molds.

Steam covered over high heat for 8 minutes.

Yield 12 mini cakes.

Apam Balik (Sweet Crispy Pancakes)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup rice flour
1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups water
A small pinch of yellow coloring (optional)
oil for greasing

Filling:

1 cup toasted peanut, coarsely grind
1 (125 g) canned sweet corn kernel
1/2 cup sugar
50 g butter

Method:

In a large bowl, beat eggs with sugar till thick, pale and fluffy.

Add-in baking powder, soda, salt, coloring and water, continue mixing to incorporate fully.

Add flours and mix-well to form homogeneous batter.

Heat up a non-stick pan, lightly grease with oil (clean-off any access oil with a paper towel).

Pour a ladle of batter into the pan, swirl the pan to spread out batter evenly.

Sprinkle some coarse peanut powder, sugar, sweet corn kernels, a few dollops of butter onto pancake and cover it.

Cook till center of the pancake is cooked, the edges is brown and crispy.

Remove from pan and fold into half.

Serve.

Kuih Bahulu

Ingredients:

1 cup eggs (3 eggs yolks + 4 egg whites)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/4 tsp baking powder (optional)

Method:

Sieve flour together with baking powder, set aside.

In a deep bowl, whisk eggs and sugar until thick, pale and stiff.

Preheat oven to 250 °C.

Lightly grease mold.

Fold-in 3/4 tbsp of flour mixture into 4 tbsp of stiffed eggs batter (prepare just enough for a batch), stir batter to mix.

Spoon batter into the prepared mold (fill-up to 80% in volume).

Bake batter in the preheated oven for about 6 minutes or until puffed and golden brown.

Remove from oven and let cool completely before storing.

Paruppu Vadai

Ingredients:

250 g Chana Dal
1/2 cup shrimp, peeled and finely chopped (omit it for vegetarian version)
2 red onion, finely chopped
4 red chili
2 green chili (optional)
2 tsp curry powder
1.5 tsp salt or to taste
few curry leaves, roughly chopped
3 tbsp flour
1/4 cup water
oil for deep-frying

Method:

Soak channa dal in water for at least 3 hours or overnight.

In a food processor, add red chili, green chili, curry powder and salt, grind for 5 minutes.

Add-in soaked dal and water (use water as little as possible just for processor to roughly grind), partially grind for 1 minute (divide into few batches for smaller processor).

Withdraw from processor, add-in chopped shrimp, onion, curry leaves and flour, mix-well to form homogeneous paste.

Shape into small balls and lightly press to flatten.

Heat oil in wok, deep fry till golden grown.

Kuih Ondeh-Ondeh (Nutella Filling)

Ingredients:

1 cup glutinous rice flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup hot water

Filling:

1/4 cup nutella cream
(original filling is palm sugar)

Coating:

1/2 cup roasted peanut powder
(original coating is grated coconut mixed with a pinch of salt)

Method:

In a mixing bowl, mix flour and salt.

Pour-in hot water and stir to form soft and smooth dough (adjust between flour and hot water).

Divide dough into small pieces lime-size balls.

Flatten each ball, fill enough nutella in the center, close to seal and roll up into ball again.

Drop the filled ondeh-ondeh into boiling water.

Scoop-up dry once it floated.

Coat with roasted peanut powder.

Curry Puffs

Ingredients:

Filling:

2 large potatoes, boiled and cut into cubes
2 medium red onion, finely chopped
1 (80g) canned tuna (omit it for vegetarian version)
4 tbsp hot curry powder
6 tbsp soy sauce or to taste
1/4 tsp pepper
3 tbsp oil

Pastry:

500 g all-purpose flour (tipo o)
150 g margarine
3/4 cup water
3/4 tsp salt
oil for deep-frying

Method:

Filling:

Heat oil in wok or non-stick pan, stir-fry onion till fragrant and golden brown.

Add tuna and potatoes cubes, stir-fry for another 2 minutes.

Add curry powder, soy sauce and pepper, stir-fry to well-mix the seasonings.

Remove from heat and leave aside to cool.

Pastry:

In a large bowl, mix flour, margerine, water and salt, knead to form smooth dough.

Leave to rest for 30 minutes.

Roll into cylinder shape, cut into pieces.

Flatten each dough into circle with 3 inches diameter and half cm thick.

Place enough filling in the center and fold pastry over to make a half circle, flowered the edge to seal.

Deep-fry over high heat until golden brown.

Drain on absorbent paper and serve warm.