Cendol from Scratch

Tropical countries in South East Asia has a couple of common desserts. One of them is the infamous, Cendol. This green worm like jelly product is a joy on a hot sunny day. Served on shaved ice topped with coconut milk and drizzled with thick Gula Melaka syrup, The Cendol is an all time Malaysian favourite dessert. They tastes better on the streets, I think that is due to the feeling of the cool smooth sweetness of the dessert gliding down one's throat when one is half melting in the sun!

Aunty Mayyee shows us how it is made the traditional way minus the machines and the artificial food colouring which is how most are being produced commercially nowadays.

Here are the simple ingredients:

• 1 cup green pea flour (Lok Tau Tang Meen)
• 4 cups of water
• 10 stems of pandanus leaves
• 1 tsp Air Abu (Sodium Silicate)

Method:

1. Soak 1 cup of of green pea flour with 2 cups of water for 2 hours
2. Blend the pandanus leaves with the remaining 2 cups of water
3. Sift the blended juice and squeeze out as much juice from the blended leaves. Discard mashed by product
4. Mix juice to soaked flour slurry 
5. Stir the slurry
6. Add in 1 tsp of Air Abu
7. See the brightness of the green pop
8. Continuously stir to cook the slurry over medium heat
9. Meanwhile, prepare a tub of ice cold water
10. We have a make shift gadget to create the 'worms'. It is a lid of a metal pan, hammered with holes of approx 0.5cm in diameter. Place this gadget on top of iced water
11. As soon as the slurry thickens to a consistency of a thick pliable glob, turn the heat down to its lowest. The glob needs to stay hot to be pliable, otherwise it will turn hard as it cools down which in turn will make it very difficult to push it through the holes.
12. Scoop a ladle of glob onto the holed pan. Working quickly with a silicon scrapper or side of a mug, push the mixture through the holes, creating strand like worms to fall into the iced water. Once it hits the iced water, the strands hardens and form the infamous worm like jelly cendol.
13. Drain & serve with shaven ice (best) or ice cubes, coconut cream (add a little salt) and Gula Melaka Syrup (recipe can be found from my earlier post on Sago Gula Melaka)
14. Some like to add accompliments like Red Beans, Glutinuous Rice, Grass Jelly, Creamed Corn, Ice Cream etc etc ... then it turns into A B C !

Images:

Ingredients

This is the Luk Tau Tang Meen Flour

The more pandan, the merrier!

The Secret for the QQ bite

Cooking the slurry

You want it to be at this consistency

Family Heirloom hand made by Sifu's mama

You can choose a mug for the job like how Grand Sifu made it...

Or you can opt for a silicon or plastic scraper (we find this much easier)

Yummilicious!

Au Naturel !

I love Gula Melaka Syrup.. cant help it!! Sorry guys!!

Sago & Salted Gula Melaka Syrup

Of Peranakan (Chinese-Malay) origin, this dessert of Sago, which is a STARCH extracted from tropical palms and its usually found in the form of round 'pearls' of which after it has been boiled, are translucent, soft, silky smooth & spongy paired with a flood of deep, rich, sweet & aromatic Gula Melaka Syrup. Gula melaka (also known as Palm Sugar) is made by first extracting the sap from the flower bud of a coconut tree.   The sap is then boiled until it thickens & caramelised after which, it is poured into bamboo tubes and left to solidify to form cylindrical cake blocks. The best Gula Melaka, in our opinion is from Malacca, where else? 

Here is the recipe which I got from Lyn Loh & her guidance via whatsapp one Selangor Public Holiday afternoon from her office ;)

Ingredients

Sago Pearls - mini size - 250 grams
Gula Melaka - 2 cylinder blocks
Brown Sugar/Molasses - 1/2 cup
Salt - 1 tsp
Coconut Cream - 1st extraction from 1 coconut (about 250ml)
Fresh Coconut shavings - 2-3 tbsp
Pandanus Leaves - 4
Water

Method - Sago

1. Bring a large pot of water to the boil.
2. Sprinkle the dried Sago Pearls into the boiling water.
3. Add in a knot of pandan leaves.
4. Stir the pearls around as not to allow them to stick to the bottom of the pot.
5. The pot of water will turn starchy very soon, continue to stir for 10 mins.
6. You will notice that the outsides of the pearls will turn translucent as you stir and the opaque whites will become tinier and tinier towards the middle. 
7. At about the 10th minute mark, the pearls will only have tiny white specks in the middle.
8. Pour in a cup of room temperature water into the pot and turn off the heat immediately.
9. Cover the pot and allow to stand for another 10 minutes.
10. After 10 minutes standing time, most of the white specks would have faded away.
11. Sieve the pearls out from the pot and wash the excess starch with cold running water. Give it several washes until the pearls are no longer as sticky Running through them with your hands will feel like thousands of tiny smooth individual pearls waiting to be popped.
12. Add in 2-3 tbsp of freshly shaved/grated coconut flesh. Mix them together. This is to add a different texture/dimension/sensation to the bite. Omit if you do not like the crunch.
13. Wet your moulds and pack in the gleaming sago pearls and coconut bits.
14. Refrigerate for a few hours before serving.

Method - Gula Melaka Syrup

1. Shave 2 cylinder blocks of Gula Melaka.
2. Into a pot, add shaved Gula Melaka, brown sugar/molasses, salt & 2-3 tsp of water & a knot of pandan leaves.
3. Melt the sugar in low heat, keep a watchful eye over the pot so as not to burn the precious sugars!
4. Once the sugars have melted, slowly pour in the coconut cream and immediately turn off the heat.
5. Stir the syrup and allow to cool.
6. Once cooled, the syrup will thicken.

Ribbon the thick GM Syrup over the bland cold sago & magically turn the pudding into a wonderous addiction that will send anyone on a first class ticket to heaven!

Photos :-