More traditional toothsome treats

This weekend’s project is ‘ondeh-ondeh’

It’s one of those recipes I came across when browsing through the net and I bookmarked it to try it out.

It didn’t look to difficult, so I had in mind to prepare it for cell refreshments or some other occasion like that. However hubs said (with a cunning grin) "you’d better test it out first for practice".

So I bought/prepared the necessary ingredients:

• 1-2 tspn pandan essence (or blend 8-10 pandan leaves with some water and strain out the juice)
• 1½ cups glutinous rice flour + a pinch of salt
• ½ cup boiling water
• ½ cup grated coconut
• A few drops of green food colouring (optional)
• Filling: ½ cup gula melaka + 1 tbsp brown sugar

Similar to making tang yuan, just mix the flour, water, pandan juice/essence (plus optional green food colouring) until you get a soft dough. Transfer to a floured work surface and knead

Pinch of a bit of the dough, shape into a ball. Then use your thumb to create a cavity and fill with a little bit of the gula melaka + brown sugar mixture. Seal the cavity and shape back into a ball.

Drop the balls into a pot of boiling water to cook. The balls will rise to surface when done. After taking them out, let them dry a little bit before tossing in the grated coconut

My first attempt wasn’t the most fantastic. For one thing, it’s a bit tricky to make sure the dough is flattened out thin enough before adding the filling to make sure the dough layer isn’t too thick. That will take a bit of practice. Also, because the gula melaka will melt inside the ball when cooking, you can actually compact the sugar a lot more as you add the filling in so the ball doesn’t end up wobbly.

Apart from these imperfections, hubs said it was pretty good.