Fresh Coconut Indulgence

Despite the absence of new entries for over a week, I am still cooking diligently to fill our stomachs, albeit with less fresh inspirations.

The week has been punctuated by a mix of successes and failures. The highlight being Rémi's attempt at making foie gras paté after chancing upon fresh duck liver at the supermarket over the weekend.

I'm not a big fan of anything to do with liver (except pig's liver mee sua soup without the liver itself). But goose liver became an exception for me after tasting the Fontan's famously delicious foie gras. French are particular about how they eat their prized foie gras and you're not supposed to spread the pâté thinly on the bread, but rather, eat as a whole chunky slice on it. Yet, the freshly made foie gras is so smooth (read fat) you instantly forget you're eating liver.

But the conclusion of our expensive (having bought 1kg of duck liver and 1 bottle of brandy) foie gras adventure in New Zealand: leave the ducks alone here. The key to good foie gras is as much about birds' oversized French diet as it is about how it is cooked.

On the same weekend, we also tediously attempted to make Malay kuehs. Tedious because we used FRESH coconut. As in, bought a whole coconut, used a hammer to hack it open, and painstakingly grated the flesh inside (to Rémi's credit, he did all of these). Unlike in Singapore, where we can easily buy freshly grated coconut off supermarket shelves or at the wet market, we find only whole coconuts (presumably from the nearby Pacific Islands).

I can say for certain on behalf of Rémi, we're not going to grate coconut ourselves too often, so with this precious lot of grated coconut, we cooked them with gula melaka (palm sugar) to make sweet coconut fillings for kueh dadar (pancakes with sweet coconut ), pulut inti (glutinous rice with sweet coconut) and kueh koci (sweet coconut in glutinous rice flour dough). Whatever remains of the sweet coconut, we sandwiched them in sesame burger bun for breakfast today.

My kueh dadar recipe comes from "Authentic recipes from Indonesia". In Singapore and Malaysia, green colouring is commonly added to the pancake, but not in this cookbook. Anyway, I didn't quite fancy artificial colouring, and although I had also painstakingly pounded some pandan leaves to squeeze out some green juice out of it, it wasn't intense enough dye the batter.

Similarly, the rice in Pulut Inti is traditionally blue but I had left it as white. Also lacking in banana leaves to wrap the rice and coconut, I made them sushi style. The recipe comes from my Food & Nutrition textbook that I had for my O levels.

Kueh Dadar
makes about 6-8 pancakes

75g flour
1 egg
250ml thick coconut milk
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon oil

Coconut filling
50g gula melaka (palm sugar)
30ml water
50g freshly grated coconut
pinch of salt
1 pandan leaf, tied into a knot

Make coconut filling by bringing the sugar and water to boil in a saucepan. Over low heat, simmer uncovered for about 10 minutes until the sugar is dissolved. Add all other ingredients and stir continuously until the mixture is well mixed and dries up. Discard the pandan leaves.

To make the pancakes, combine flour, egg, coconut milk and salt in a mixing bowl. Whisk into a smooth batter.

Grease a frying pan and heat over low heat. When the pan is heated, scoop 1 ladle of the batter onto the pan and quickly turn to obtain a thin round layer. Cook until the pancake sets and begins to brown, then flip over the cook the other side for a few seconds. Remove and continue doing the same until the batter is finished.

To serve, place pancake on flat surface, top with coconut fillings and roll up tightly into a cylinder shape.

Pulut Inti

1 cup glutinous rice (wash and soak in water for at least half an hour)
125ml coconut milk (meaning for 250ml cup of rice, you halve the amount of coconut milk)
pinch of salt
blue colouring, optional

Coconut filling, same as for kueh dadar


Drain the soaked rice and pour into a greased shallow cake tin. Mix in the salt, coconut milk and blue colouring.

Steam until the rice is cooked (about half an hour).

Make the coconut fillings, like you do for the kueh dadar.

To assemble, put 2 tablespoons of the cooked glutinous rice onto a greased banana leaf and a spoonful of coconut filling on top. Wrap up nicely for serving. Or do it sushi style, roll the rice into a ball and top with coconut filling.