Candied Coconut - gula melaka ????

When I was in primary school, the canteen man sold candied coconut for 10sen a small pack.

Many years, I never came across this again.

Then, when I was in uni, I saw it in Petaling Street, wow , it�s turned into something pricey. Still bought it, cos I like it.

2 months after my daughter was born, I saw this again in SS2 pasar malam. And they don�t only have the regular white candied coconut, they even have a gula melaka version, which is palm sugar. This stall also sells candied ginger, lotus roots, and water chestnut.
And they are going for RM3.50 for small pack of 150gm. RM10 for 3 packs, but RM13.50 for 4 packs, weird way of marketing huh?? I bought 3 packs.

I saw in pwmf�s site on how to make candied coconut. But didn�t think that I�d make my own one day, cos it seemed too troublesome to remove the coconut flesh from the hard shell. Then I saw in Kuala Kangsar wet market�s coconut milk stall, there�s coconut flesh for sale. Yahooo!!! Bought 1 kg of it. I want to make it the night itself, substituting the white sugar that pwmf uses with gula melaka, adding in some pandan leaves for extra aroma. I was worried about the pot burning, but luckily it didn�t. Pwmf uses medium high heat until water evaporates, but I used low fire all the while� Scared ma!!!


Candied Coconut Recipe

1kg coconut flesh (without shell)
500 gm gula melaka (pounded or chopped)
Few blades of pandan leaves, shredded.

Trim coconut flesh to remove all brown skins, wash and slice into desired thickness,
Mix coconut flesh with pounded gula melaka, and let it bleed for a while.
Put everything into a heavy bottomed pot and cook until a thin layer of sugar powder coats the coconut.
Place coconut shreds onto a flat tray and let it cool down before putting it into an air tight container.

***
By using low heat all the time, it took me 1.5 hours, pot uncovered.

I find the amount of sugar a bit too much, as there were a lot of sugar dust on the bottom of the pot, so, the next time I�ll make this, I�ll just use 330gm. I used up the remaining sugar in the pot by making egg drop agar-agar.

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Bubur Cha Cha ????

This is the unofficial favourite dessert of many Malaysians.

Funny name, Bubur Cha Cha
Bubur means porridge in Malay, Cha Cha is...hmmm... no idea..
Will I do the Cha Cha dance after eating this dessert.... hehe.. maybe I will.
The cantonese pronunciation for this dessert is even funnier.. Mo Mo Cha Cha (touch touch, grasp grasp)

There are many variants of it, some with bananas, some with cassava or tapioca, some w/o the black eyed peas, some with those wriggly worm like multicolour rice flour bits, and I even heard a version with kuih bakul.

Some people find this dessert very time consuming to prepare, they say it's because one has to dice most of the main ingredients. I find that to be not much of a problem if one doesn't use a ruler to measure every cut the knife goes down on. The time consuming part is cooking the black eyed peas, that's the real problem, 3 hours and that's after soaking for another 3 hours!!!

This is a version commonly made by the Chinese in central Perak, with black eyed peas, taro (mistakenly refered as yam in msia), two types of sweet potatoes, fresh coconut milk, and sago pearls. And we (majority of central perakians) dun favour a salty bubur chacha, unlike our northern friends.



There is a missing ingredient... I dunno what it's called.. but I know it's made with tapioca starch, dyed red and made into squiggly chewy gummy jelly. I have no idea how it's made. The last time I had this gummy jelly in my bubur chacha was.. say.. 20 years back, made by my neighbour.

I make quite a big batch of this, cos I love to keep it in the fridge and eat it for days... it's really yummy.

Bubur Cha Cha recipe

Ingredients:
3/4 rice bowl of black eyed peas (mei dau, soaked for minimum 3 hours)
4 leaves of pandan (shredded and tied into a knot)
1.5 L water (about 6 rice bowls)

2.5L water (about 10 rice bowls)
1.5 rice bowl taro (cut into 1cm cubes)
1.5 rice bowl yellow sweet potato(cut into 1cm cubes)
1.5 rice bowl orange sweet potato(cut into 1cm cubes)
1/3 rice bowl fish eye sago pearls
1 1/2 Tbsp fish egg sago pearls

350 gm rock sugar or normal white sugar
150 gm gula melaka (palm sugar)

fresh coconut milk from 2 coconuts (about 4ooml undiluted)
1/2 tsp salt (to prevent the coconut milk from going bad fast, but not enough to turn the whole thing salty)

** Conversion: 1 rice bowl is approximately 1 cup 250ml

Method:
1. Boil 1.5L water, simmer black eyed peas and pandan knot on low fire for 2-3 hours or until peas are soft.
2. When peas are almost soft, put in fish eye sago pearls (Do not presoak them). Let them simmer together.
3. Cut taro, sweet potatoes and put them in together with 2.5L of water after peas are soft. Bring to a boil and lower down fire to simmer for 15 minutes.
4. Take out pandan knot. Sprinkle in fish egg sago pearls. Put in rock sugar and palm sugar. Simmer for another 10 minutes.
5. Turn off the fire, and leave pot uncovered for 5 minutes.
6. Pour in coconut milk and salt. Stir to combine. Wait for 15 minutes before putting lid back onto the pot. This is to prevent the coconut milk to turn oily.

** If you put in coconut milk too soon after turning off fire, it will curdle. If you put in too late, the whole thing will turn bad faster(hmm.. in 1-2 days, eventhough it's in the fridge) due to the coconut milk being `uncooked'. With properly cooked uncurdled coconut milk in the bubur chacha, I kept them in the fridge up to 5 days, and it tasted alright.

** I do not recommend purple sweet potatoes in this dessert. It makes the whole thing purple!!! A little overpowering on the colour. This is my personal opinion.

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