Authentic Nyonya Onde-Onde Recipe

Everyone in my family, being a Penang Baba and Nyonya descendents loves to eat onde onde.
Onde –onde is one of the local Malaysian foods that the Baba and Nyonya descendents adopted. These gluey and chewy balls coated with grated coconut make a very nice dessert. There is another shortcut method of making onde onde, which all the flour are mixed together but the kuih will be springy!

Ingredients
Skin
Glutinous Rice Flour, 350 gms
Corn Flour or Tapioca Flour, 100 gms
Sugar, 30gms
Salt, ½ teaspoon
Pandan (screwpine) Juice Concentrate, ½ cup
Oil, 1 teaspoon
Water, enough for the dough, to be added slowly

Coating
Coconut, grated, 1 coconut, add a litte salt

Fillings
Gula Melaka (or palm sugar), 150gms
Brown Sugar, 50 gms
Mix both fillings together.

Mix tapioca flour, oil, sugar and salt in 250ml of water. Bring to a boil to make a gluey mixture. Stir this often so that clumps will not form. Pour this over the glutinous rice flour and stir the mixture quickly. Add pandan juice. Make sure the dough is well mix. If it is to sticky to work on; add some more glutinous rice flour. Make the dough into ball around 3cm in diameter and then put in the fillings. Roll the ball until it is round and smooth. Put the onde onde ball in boiling water for around 1 minute. When the ball floats up, remove it and coat with the grated coconut. The onde onde is ready.

Vegetarian Nyonya Pulut Inti (Glutinous rice with Grated Coconut in Palm Sugar)

Ever since my daughter watched The Little Nyonya serial drama in Astro, she has been bugging me to make Nyonya delicacies for her to eat. She is even more excited when I told her that she is a fifth generation Straits Born and her Great Grandmother is a Nyonya.
Well, here is one of the popular evergreen Nyonya kuih (dessert) recipe that was adopted by the Straits Born Chinese in Malaysia from the original Malay Pulut Inti kuih.

Ingredients
Glutinous Rice, 200 gms, soaked for 5 hours to soften
Pandan leaves, 3 pcs
Coconut Milk (Santan), from ½ coconut
Grated coconut, from ½ coconut
Palm Sugar (Gula Melaka), 2”x2”x2”, melted with a little hot water
Sugar, ½ cup
Banana leaves, cut into 6”x6”x6” to be used as wrapper (I could not find banana leaves in my neighborhood, so I just used clear plastic)
A little salt

Add salt and pandan leaves to glutinous rice and steam for 15 minutes or until the rice are cooked. Add coconut milk to the rice and steam for another 10 minutes. To make the Inti (toppings), mix the grated coconut with palm sugar and sugar. Stir until they are well mixed. Put around one small hand grip of glutinous rice on the banana leaves and then put a spoonful of Inti (toppings) on it. Wrap the banana leave into a pyramid shape and fold both ends of the leaves below it to hold the wrapping together.

Red Vegetarian Red Tortoise Bun – Ang Mi Ku

Ang Mi Ku or Red Vegetarian Red Tortoise Bun is very popular in the Northern States of Malaysia especially in Penang and Butterworth. It is one of the must have offering during Chinese religious festival and you will see many of them are lined up at the prayers altar. The most common ones are red but you will sometimes see other different colours Mi Ku too. Some comes with head and legs just like a tortoise which is also a symbol of longivity. Mi Ku taste nice if eaten just the way it is or for extra kick you can dip it in curry just like roti canai (Malaysian Pancake). Sometime I will fry them in flour batter. Yummy and delicious!

Here is the recipe for Mi Ku

Mix 1 teaspoon of dry yeast and 2 table spoons of sugar in warm water (leave it for 15 minutes)
Pour the mixture into 500gms of wheat flour and knead the dough until they are well mix.
Take some dough and make it into tortoise shell shape and colour the outer layer with red food dye (Optional). Cut some grease paper and put the bun on it so that it will not stick to the steaming pan.
Cover up the tortoise bun with towel and put aside for the yeast to do their work for around 3 hours.
Steam the buns using high heat for 20 minutes.