GLUTINOUS CONES WITH COCONUT FILLING - KUIH KOCI

Hell-looow I'm back. Back from reality. From real life. As opposed to the my virtual one. I apologize for the sudden, unannounced exit but it was a totally on-the-spur-of-the-moment-thing, unplanned and something that I was completely in need of. Like food and water.

I've been lungeing at the treadmill, threatening those weights, revamping my garden (if you can call it one), painting the old rattan chair a fresh, vibrant white, drinking 8 glasses of water a day, gulping down some wheat-grasss-ed smoothies and living. Just plain down to earth, real life, tangible living.

It feels good and I figured I am now deserving of getting back into my virtual world for a moment, talk to you and make a treat for my blog. So I made some kuih koci - glutinous, sticky, sweet coconut filled cones standing pointedly pretty and ready to be bitten into....It's sticky, sweet without being overly so, stretchy and just so pointedly good!


For those of you who know not yet a combination of glutinous rice flour and coconut cream makes an amazingly giving and very obliging dough. Lacking the gluten present in wheat flour, there is no worry about over-mixing, over-kneading, of it cracking when shaping or even of it drying out. I had a blast handling this dough and it reminded me of a very white, fat and absolutely lazy cat who would allow you to twist, turn, bend, cuddle, squeeze, shape or press its soft plump body any which way you want without as much as a whimper or a threat. That was how it felt. Just so indulgent, gracious and agreeable.


The filling for the kuih koci (pronounced ko-weh ko-chi) was some coarsely shredded coconut sweetened with a thick palm sugar syrup and cajoled into a moist, dark, damp and scrummy mound; a very popular filling for Asian cakes and desserts.


And thank god for banana leaves too..... because it allows me to make my cakes in any form I fancy. And since I was in the mood for cones, cones it was. Love those pointed tips.


Here's the recipe...............

Prepare the banana leaves :

Wipe clean on both sides, cut into rectangular pieces about 6 by 4 inches and wilt the banana leaves over a fire on your stove or in the oven at a low temperature. Swipe them with some cooing oil before wrapping the glutinous rice cones.Check here on how to prepare banana leaves for wrapping.

The filling :

1 to 1 1/2 cups fresh shredded coconut
100 gm palm sugar, broken into pieces
1 tbsp regular white sugar or to taste
a pinch of salt

Place the palm sugar, white sugar, salt and 1 or 2 tablespoons of water ina small pot over small heat. When the palm sugar has dissolved pour in the shredded coconut. Mix well until teh coconut is veenly coated witht eh sugar and is a dark rich brown.

The dough :

2 cups glutinous rice flour
2 tbsp castor sugar
1 tbsp vegetable oil
pinch of salt
1 cup (250 ml) coconut cream

Place the dry ingredients in a medium bowl and mix. Add the liquid ingredients and combine with a spatula first and then as the mixture begins to get lumpy use your hands to form into a smooth and soft dough. It may seem dry at first but rest assured that there is more than enough moisture to bind the dough together into a soft lovely mass.

Divide the dough into 12 pieces. Roll 1 piece into a ball and then flatten into a disc. Place the coconut filling in the centre of the disc, cover up and seal. You may at this point shape it inot a rough cone first.

Get a piece of wilted banana leaf and roll it into a cone shape like you would a piece of paper for piping icing. Place the filled dough snugly into the banana leaf cone, fold down the excess at the top firmly and tightly and place the filled cone flat down on its base. Do the same for the rest of the dough and filling.

I understand that one could staple the banana leaf into place to ensure that it doesn't open up during the steaming process but I haven't figured out how that could ever be done. An easier way of wrapping these little dumplings would be to place the filled ball of dough onto the rectangular banana leaf, fold over the top and bottom ends over the dough snugly and then fold the left and rights ends under and place them folded ends down flat on a plate until they are ready to be steamed.

If all this sounds too complicated to you, believe me, it's not. It sounds more complicated than it is. A little experimenting and common sense will work just fine.

Set a steamer ready at a rolling boil and steam those little babies for 15 to 20 minutes. Serve wrapped in the banana leaves. YUMMMMMMMM

BOILED FRUIT CAKE

If one day I were to become heavy, thick, dense and slow I'll call myself a fruit cake. Because that was what this fruit cake was all about. Thick, heavy, dense and S-L-O-W. It took 3 and a half or more hours (I lost count!) to cook at 140 C and all I could do was to wait and whimper.

It was quite maddening considering how hot the kitchen gets with the oven being on for hours on end and the fact that I couldn't run anywhere else to cool down except towards the kitchen sink whenever I stepped into the kitchen and of course it didn't make things any easier considering that the whole country at this time of year feels like 140 C in itself.

But, that being said, it was a very good fruit cake and it was one of the easiest to mix. This is a boiled fruit cake from a recipe book by Marry Berry called, believe it or not, "FAST CAKES"!?!


I made it easier though by using ready mixed fruit since I wouldn't have been able to differentiate the taste of the fruits once it became cake anyway (and as if I would know the difference between raisins and currants!) and this recipe required no soaking of the fruits at all. It is a very simple recipe and one that I wouldn't exchange for any other where fruit cake was concerned. It cuts extremely well and looks so smart and neat when sliced, in addition to being moist and just nice sweet, that it was perfect for the wedding cake that I made and decorated a few posts back.


Here's the recipe...........

14 oz (397 gm) can condensed milk
5 oz magarine (I used butter)
*8 oz raisins
*8 oz sultanas
*8 oz currants
*4 oz glace cherries
8 oz plain flour
2 level tsp mixed spice
1 level tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 level tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 eggs

*Instead of all those fruits I used 28 ounces of ready mixed fruit and it turned out fine.

Heat the oven to 140 C and grease and line a 7 inch round cake tin.

Pour the condensed milk into a heavy based pot, add the butter/magarine fruit and glace cherries. Place over a low heat until the milk and magarine have melted, stir well and then simmer gently for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and leave to cool for about 10 minutes.



Sieve the flour into a large bowl, together with spices and bicarbonate of soda and make a well into the centre. Add the eggs and cooled mixture (you could also add some nuts at this point) and mix until well blended. (What I actually did was to add the flour mixture and eggs into the pot of boiled fruit and mix. Turned out fine and saved me washing a bowl).

Turn the mixture into the baking tin and bake for hours and hours. If the centre feels firm and doesnt give way it's done. Leave to cool for 10 minutes before turning out of the tin.

SPICY CHICKPEAS FROM 'A FEAST, EVERYDAY'

It's strange where satisfaction is derived from sometimes but chickpeas, boiled or steamed, is certainly where I get it from.

I prefer my chickpeas boiled as opposed to roasted. It is sweeter, juicier and certainly more enjoyable to savour because I could absent-mindedly skin the thin membrane around it while chatting, thinking, watching, reading, moaning, grumbling or just simply revel in the sensation of slipping the thin opaque coating soundlessly off its host before popping the shiny, slippery and bald chickpea into my mouth. It is quite similar to cracking, nibbling and fiddling the shell of sunflower, pumpkin or melon seeds before getting at the minuscule matter inside. It keeps you busy and preoccupied over absolutely nothing.

But it does fill the little void and gaps between the fragile, pompous and more important matters of life just like cotton wool in between jewelry or styro-foam beads between crystal-ware or air bubble sheets between electronic products. Yes. They're absolutely necessary where we come from.


And I knew no other way to prepare chickpeas as a snack except by boiling them and steaming them and then eating them, that is, until I came across A Feast, everyday, a lovely blog that showed me how to turn simple chickpeas into a wonderful, biting, appetizing snack with just a sprinkle(handful) of fragrant curry leaves, some crunchy mustard seeds and rings of piquant snipped dried chillies all thrown in. It makes me say "Now why didn't I think of that?"



It makes me feel warm and ready for a cozy curl up with a good book, with an ice-cold cucumber drink on the side and with some vacant space inside my head so that I could think of nothing else than to eat seasoned tumeric-ed chickpeas from a China bowl with the pungence of the curry leaves curling up, wafting by and tickling my nose and teasing my happy tastebuds. Need I say more?


Thanks to A feast, Everyday, here's the recipe with some very minor adjustments....

500 gm cooked chickpeas, or canned
3-5 dried chillies, snipped into rings
1 Tbsp mustard seeds
a handful of curry leaves
1/2 tsp tumeric powder
1 tsp sugar
salt to taste
1 tsp chillie powder (optional)
2 Tbsp cooking oil

If you have bought raw chickpeas, rinse them in cold water, let the grit run out and soak overnight. The next morning rinse off the water. The chickpeas would have swelled to twice its size. Boil them in pot of water seasoned with some salt and sugar. The water level should be well above the chickpeas. It will probably take about an hour or more. Test for tenderness.When it is tender all the way through it is done and ready to be fried. Drain the chickpeas and keep aside in a colander.

In a pan large enough, heat up the oil. Fry the dried chillies, until fragrant, drain. Then fry the curry leaves until fragrant and crisp, drain. Fry the mustard seeds until fragrant then add the fried chillies, fried curry leaves, a teaspoon of tumeric powder, the chillie powder, if using, and the chickpeas. Add salt and sugar and stir quickly until just well mixed. Do not fry too long otherwise the chickpeas will get a little tough on the outside. Adjust the salt if necessary and the sugar too.

Serve.

THE WEDDING AT MALACCA

Another son/nephew/cousin/brother, another wedding, another cake, another bride and another post. And this time in lovely Malacca.

I have learnt two things not to do at weddings. One, never to get within a hair's breath of the kompang(drummer) boys unless you want your eardrums vibrating outside of your head and two, never to leave the hotel room without 2 kilos of sunblock smeared on your nose and rest of face in anticipation of the searing, relentless midday sun. Oh, and three sweat and photography are not to be done simultaneously.

Short of good photographs this time around for the lack of photographs taken from my camera I had a hard time filtering some good ones. But I did what I had to do. (Lia dear... I'm still waitingggg....)

It was about time Faisal tied the knot with Lilis because the way I see it he is very very very much loved by his (by now) in laws. He completes them. And with God's will and blessing may the marriage bring more love and laughter into their lives.

Durian Tunggal, the village where Lilis comes from is absolutely charming, quaint and clean and its grass lush and green. In the three houses built several feet away from each other within a large plot of land that slopes gently up towards the back live three families of relatives each within ear shot of the other.

One of the homes built slightly to the back is a lovely old Malaccan house with the typical and unique flight of beautiful steps originally built perhaps about a hundred or more years ago. It is now officially declared a heritage building and is protected by the state government of Malacca just like the 100 year old masjid(mosque) where the official marriage ceremony was held within walking distance from the bride's home.




The cooking for the feast on the first day of the celebrations was done to the left of this beautiful home under the big shade of some large trees. I saw at least 2 large (ultra large) cauldrons and other cooking paraphernalia under those trees in the cool cool shade and how I wish I had taken a picture.

Like all marriages it all begins with the official ceremony under the scrutiny of a religious official at the lovely, bijou and tiny village masjid.

Lovely Lilis looking beautiful and enchanting in white waited, quiet and patient, in a corner....



While strapping, fun and lovable Faisal, the second and youngest son of my husband's younger brother Nasrun and his wife Kartini, younger brother of Fir who got married earlier, had to do what a man had to do. He listened to a long paternal lecture from the official, made his promises, took his vows and signed the marriage contract. That done Lilis joined him, took her vows, signed the contract and kissed her husband's hand. They looked blissfully happy in the union, Faisal and Lilis. May Allah bless them always.

The bride's eldest and loving brother, the head of the family since their father passed on several years ago, and Faisal clasp hands as Faisal promises to be a responsible and faithful husband to his little sister Lilis.



In the cozy crowd, as the midday sun streamed in, its harsh light filtered and subdued by the stained glass that ran along the top edge of the walls, with the room encased in the glow from the midnight blue of the carpet, framed by the dark timber beams that ran across the ceiling and guarded by the stone and wooden pillars that stood like sentinels across the room, sat the cake that I made. Heh. Looking lovely. As lovely as the bride.



The cake.That I made. With blood, love, sweat and tears.



What are weddings without cakes and babies. Before and after.



That evening of the same day fireworks went hissing and shooting off into the hollow of the night sky while we made a lot of noise down below.



Lilis meets and welcomes Faisal at the entrance to her home. Faisal looks fondly and lovingly on. Both of them decked completely and resplendently in a combination of Baba-Nyonya (descendents of the late 18th century Chinese immigrants who have adopted partially or in full Malay customs/food/dress and use the Malay language in their day to day lives) and Malay dress.



The bride and her groom walked to the dais that was ready and waiting in Lilis's home for the customary blessings to begin.

The next day, blessed by a hot and blazing sun, Faisal adjusts his suit before doing the finale of the wedding celebrations, the bersanding (sitting on the dias as a married couple). Making sure he looked spiffy was his best man, my nephew, Fadzli.



The final walk with Dad, Mom ,(in pink at the back) little sis, uncles, brother, aunts and cousins making sure he gets there. No more looking back Faisal! This is it. I have never seen Faisal happier.



The very beautiful bride, Lilis, is as happy as he is. Resplendent in her trailing wedding gown.

The bersanding ceremony against a backdrop of roses. Perhaps life is sometimes a bed of roses after all.......


Yes Dad.... No Dad ....Yes Dad....no more.....they're on their own. Datuk Datu Nasrun blessing his son and daughter-in-law.



The cake feeding as always.......marking the end of the wedding and the beginning of a new life as husband and wife.



My favourite part, in addition the rest of the wedding.... the wedding favours..The bunga telur (eggs on a stalk) are given to guests. Beautiful crepe paper blossoms in buttercup yellow and moss green leaves.



The main wedding favour that encased more goodies inside. A box in bright tangerine and silver are gifts to their guests from the brides family.



And yet more favours for us!...Beautiful purple butterflies flutter on an opaque box. Inside are little Hershey chocolates...my staple food...YUMMMM!! This gets better and better...



Inside this little black case, extracted from the silver-orange box above ,were 4 pieces of treasure. 4 dainty cones of stretchy, chewy, sweet and heavenly dodol. YUMMMM!!!!!!



I think Faisal and Lilis are going to have lots and lots and lots of babies. At least that was the message Lilis' family seem to be sending. For this pretty, quaint and little yellow case contained yet another egg, in addition to the egg-flower stalk above, symbols of fertility.



Good luck and May Allah bless dear Faisal and Lilis with a long and happy marriage.