Of Taro and Yam, Sweet Potato and Kumara - Yam cake and Onde Onde

Moving to a new country often means learning not just names of new friends, but also new names for familiar foods.

The best example is the prized and hence pricey abalone in Chinese cuisine, of which New Zealand is a key exporter. But on coming here, we didn't hear any mention of the shellfish until many months later, when we were told abalone is actually known by its Maori name Paua here. Now that makes sense.

Then, I decided to make yam cake when I saw yam on sale at the market (even though the tuber look vastly different from what I know and much smaller). The result wasn't encouraging and we fed the bin more than ourselves with it.

So what is known as Yam in Singapore and Malaysia is known here as Taro (although we use the word "taro" back home too). Back home, Taro is used in sweet desserts like the bubor chacha, as well as savoury dishes such as claypot yam rice.
Now, Yam Cake is not a sweet cake, but a savoury kueh you find in dim sum restaurants. It is also eaten at breakfast by Chinese in Singapore. Taro or yam, its Chinese name 芋头糕 remains the same.

And while I was lamenting about the absence of Sweet Potatoes in Wellington, I was to discover that they are actually everywhere all year round. By a different name that is - Kumara. While Kiwis eat kumara fries here, Singaporeans like Sweet Potato Fritters, Sweet Potato and Ginger Soup (it's a sweet dessert), Sweet Potato Porridge, and yes, Sweet Potato balls in the form of Onde Onde. It's a Malay or Indonesian sweets, with palm sugar wrapped in a dough made from sweet potato and flour.

Yesterday, I finally satisfied my yam and sweet potato cravings at one go by making yam cake and onde onde. Kept me busy but the result was rewarding.

I did the Yam Cake by combining 2 recipes from my high school textbooks. Not chemistry but home economics, and food and nutrition (which I did for my O levels). So, it's simple enough for a 14 year old to make, which I did when I was 14.

Yam (or Taro) Cake 芋头糕
Serves 4-6

About 200g Taro, peeled and diced
125g rice flour
1 tablespoon corn flour
2 cups stock
half cup dried prawns, pound
4 shallots, sliced
Vegetable oil

Seasonings:
1 tablespoon light soya sauce
salt and pepper
1 teaspoon sugar

Classic garnish:
Chopped spring onions or coriander leaves
Fresh red chillies, chopped
Fried shallots

Heat oil in a frying pan. Fry the shallots until light brown. Add the pounded dried prawns and fry until fragrant. Add the yam and seasoning. Fry for a minute and remove from heat.

Put rice flour and corn flour in a saucepan. Gradually add in the stock, stirring well until the mixture thickens slightly. I'm assuming it's done over low or medium heat here. Stir until there's no lumps.

Add in the fried ingredients and mix well.

Grease a cake tin. Pour in the mixture and steam for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until it is firm. Try using a skewer to poke through the middle. If it comes out clean, should be good.

Slice, garnish (with whatever you have) and serve with chili sauce.

To reheat for eating, say the next day, you could either steam again, or pan-fried the sliced pieces. Pan-frying gives it a delightful crispy outer layer.

Onde Onde

My sister has a pretty good recipe here.

Like her, I'm not a big fan of adding food colourings, so the colour of my sweet potato balls reflected the pale yellow variety of kumara I used. The traditional colour of Onde Onde is green. Natural way is to extract the green juice out of pandan leaves.

I also did a few tweaks to her recipe. Replaced glutinous rice flour with a combination of plain flour and tapioca flour (2 tablespoon plain and 1 tablespoon tapioca flour). Add the flour gradually, so that I ended up using only two-thirds of the flour mixture, and the dough was elastic enough to be rolled into balls.

For grated coconut, in New Zealand, it is possible to buy a whole coconut imported from Fiji, find a big chopper or hammer to smash it open without spilling out the juice, and then grate the white flesh inside painstakingly. Well, that's just one possibility.

The less fresh but easier option that I experimented with pretty good results is to use dessicated coconut. Pour a little boiling water, teaspoon by teaspoon until it puffs up and looks almost fresh!