Friday, October 12, 2007

Odeh Odeh/Oneh Oneh/Ondeh Ondeh/Onde Onde


You must be wondering what I did with those gorgeous coconuts by now...

Well, besides stringing the half shells together for a quick replica of my favorite Hawaiian top (just kidding!), I've drank the coconut juice/water, made coconut milk with half of the coconut, and grated the other half of the coconut using two gadgets. One was this contraption that would be great for Halloween's torture chamber or time travel machine as one fellow blogger called it. The other was this hand-held scrapper that was very tedious work, but great for my upper arm aka turkey flaps. And I'm sure I don't have to go into details on those.

Made some fun kuih/kueh that are sweet sticky desserts from Malay/Nonya beginnings that are commonly found in South-East Asia.

The first one I made was Odeh Odeh or Oneh Oneh or Ondeh Ondeh, or Onde Onde depending where are you from and which source it was from. One of the many Nonya kuihs of my childhood, this is indeed my favorite. This is a cute little snack, usually sold in little groups of 3-5 round chewy, bouncy balls filled with sweet brown palm sugar (gula Maleka) and coated with freshly grated coconut. When you bite into one of these, it a combination of sweet crunchy coconut texture with the chewiness of the glutinous rice dough and then you reach into the sweet half-melted molasses-like and tasty palm sugar. It's a treat to your taste buds. There are many variations to this snack and this is the first recipe I attempted since I found my coconut shredder.

Used Amy Beh's recipe:
8 pandan (screwpine) leaves, cut into 3cm lengths

200g glutinous rice flour, sifted

Pinch of salt

1/2 cup boiling hot water

A few drops green colouring (omitted)

1/2 fresh grated coconut, mixed with a pinch of salt and steamed on pandan leaves for 5 mins.

Filling (combine):

100g gula Melaka

1 tbsp soft brown sugar


Put pandan leaves and a little water in a blender. Blend into a coarse pulp. Strain using a fine sieve to obtain two tablespoons of thick juice. Set the juice aside.

Put sifted glutinous rice flour and pinch of salt in a mixing bowl. Pour in boiling hot water and pandan juice. Stir well to form a smooth dough. If dough is too stiff, add a little water; if it is too wet, add a little glutinous flour.

Divide dough into small pieces and form lime-size balls. Flatten each piece, put half a teaspoon of filling in the centre and roll again into onde-onde balls.

Drop the onde-onde into boiling water. When the balls are cooked they will float. Scoop up the onde-onde with a perforated ladle, drain and toss in grated coconut.Note: I can only find frozen pandan leaves and used a few more to get the thick liquid. This onde onde recipe is a new one for me, and quite tasty, but I can't wait to try the other recipe that called for sweet potatoes as it would be softer in texture according to my friend SS.
Will try to make this cute little snack again soon.

17 comments:

Little Corner of Mine said...

Yay! I was right! Yes, I also heard the one added with sweet potato is softer. Looks good, I'm catching the ones you threw over! :D

Big Boys Oven said...

looks really small, fragile and delicious.

Wandering Chopsticks said...

I never would have guessed this. Looks great! Vietnamese have similar sticky sweet desserts too. :)

Anonymous said...

Nice, nice. How many did you yield from one coconut?

Anonymous said...

hey i love onde onde! preciesely because of the way you get different levels of taste as you bite into one - just like you described it! a friend gave me a tutorial on how to make it recently. hers included steamed sweet potato though, so the dough was not so glutinous. i loved it, and will try to make it myself, too!

Cynthia said...

Ouuuuuu, I'd love to try one of these.

Anonymous said...

These are adorable! Reminds me of Japanese mochi. I would love to try this, if I can track down the ingredients.

East Meets West Kitchen said...

Hey C!
Get ready as I'm throwing more over now. :P

Hi Big Boys Oven,
Haha! You're lucky you can buy these at your location.

Hi Wandering Chopsticks,
Oooo! I love the vietnamese sticky sweet desserts too!

Hi Judy,
I can get about 450gm of grated coconut from 1 coconut.

Hi Maninas:food matters,
It's so nice to meet another onde onde fan, and thanks for dropping by!

Hi Cynthia,
It's a fun treat, and easy to make. :)

Hi Sarah,
I love mochi too.
You can often find glutinous rice flour at the asian market, and some will sell coconuts too. Good luck!

Anonymous said...

Onde Onde also my fav. kueh lueh! I like the oozing out of the filling...

Padma said...

WOw that looks so delicious EMWK! U do such an awesome job, loved the light green color to those Onde

Cris said...

Hum, I love coconut water, when we go gor a walk in the park that's what we drink when we finish! You can find coconut stands here. I am not familiar with some of the ingredients in this recipe, but it sounds so good! Hey, I posted a recipe of yours... :-)

Rasa Malaysia said...

You know what, I have been wanting to make onde-onde but never did because I have no gula melaka. GAH.

Beau Lotus 涟 said...

Oooh, I love this!!! Wish I could have some now, but guess I'll have to make them myself. Don't quite fancy having to open a coconut though :-(. I'm all for minimum effort...

Anonymous said...

Yippee!! I'm right too! Yummy! I love ondeh-ondeh! I would make it more if I dun have to grate coconut!

East Meets West Kitchen said...

Hi Tigerfish,
Yeah, that's the best part!

Hi Padma,
Thanks! I was craving for these little snacks and the coconut shredder did helped alot. :)

Hi Cris,
I love coconut water too. Thanks, will drop by soon!

Hi Rasa Malaysia,
You can get gula melaka at http://www.mytasteofasia.com/singlong-gula-malacca-p-187.html

Hi Beau Lotus,
It's definitely some work involved, but it was fun. Wish I could just pass you some. :)

East Meets West Kitchen said...

Hi Blurmommy,
Yay! You stopped by to look. Yeah, I would make it more if they sell fresh grated coconut here too. :0

Anonymous said...

YOu can find gula melaka and many other Malaysian food at www.asiansupermarket365.com