Onde-Onde
Onde-Onde are glutinous rice balls filled with melted palm sugar, a snack that is very popular across Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.
Traditionally they are pandan flavoured rice balls made from glutinous rice flour, filled with dark palm sugar and rolled in fresh, finely grated coconut. However I prefer the other version using sweetpotato mixed with glutinous rice flour to make the rice balls, as this will help to keep the rice balls moist for a longer period. Having said that, I wouldn’t recommend keeping them for more than 24 hours though, as onde-onde are best served on the day they are made at room temperature. I have also changed to using desiccated coconut (these are unsweetened finely grated dry coconut) for coating instead of the freshly grated coconut since desiccated coconut are readily available. A note of warning though when you bite into these rice balls because the melted sugar filling inside might squirts or drizzles onto your cloth if not careful!
I like to make these palm sugar rice balls using the pandan and strawberry essence pastes to make them green and red, and these are especially festive during Christmas. For these batch however, I added a third flavour using the durian essence paste – a rainbow colour of onde-onde!
Incidentally, I usually do not use an exact recipe for making these onde-onde, since sweetpotatoes come in different sizes, and different moisture content. So what I do is to steam the sweetpotatoes, mash, then gradually add glutinous rice flour until a soft dough is obtained. Then just wrap with grated palm sugar, boil until cooked and finally coat with desiccated coconut. However in order to write this post up, I went and measured the quantities of the ingredients used so at least there is a definite measurement for future reference.
Makes approx. 21 rice balls.
[Ingredients]
250g peeled kumara (orange-flesh sweetpotato)
150g glutinous rice flour, or as required
pandan, strawberry and durian essence paste, or other essences of your choice
125g palm sugar (gula melaka), or adjust to taste
desiccated coconut, about 1 scant cup
http://cafeoftheeast.blogspot.com/
[Preparation]
1. Peel the kumara and weigh to get 250g of flesh. Cut into slices and put into a shallow bowl, steam for about 20 minutes until soft. Mash the soft kumara, together with all the liquid accumulated in the bowl, with the back of a fork.
2. Grate the palm sugar and divide into 21 little balls of about 1 teaspoon each.
2. While still warm, add the glutinous rice flour to the mashed kumara and knead into a soft, smooth dough. You may need to add a little bit more glutinous rice flour if it sticks to your hand, or if it is too dry, add a little water.
3. Divide the dough into 3 equal portions. Add about 1/2 teaspoon of each essence paste respectively to the 3 dough portions, and knead the essence paste into the dough well. Divide each dough portion into 7 pieces. Before wrapping the filling, let the dough pieces cool down if it is still warm.
4. Wrap a sugar ball inside each dough piece and roll into a ball. If any sugar starts to leak out of the dough (it sometimes happens if the dough is still slightly warm when you start wrapping), just dip the crack in the dough into some extra glutinous rice flour and roll between your palms to seal up.
5. Bring a pot of water to the boil and drop a few dough balls into the boiling water, do not crowd the pot. Stir carefully to prevent dough balls sticking to the bottom of the pot. Cook until the balls float to the surface, about 5 minutes, then cook another minute or so to melt the sugar filling inside.
6. Place the desiccated coconut in a large plate. Use a slotted spoon to fish out the cooked balls and drop immediately into the coconut, making sure they don’t touch each other. Roll each ball to coat completely with the desiccated coconut. Shake to remove extra coconut and place the onde-onde onto a serving platter.
[Tip]
It is recommended you use the dark palm sugar that comes in cylindrical tubes from Malaysia or Indonesia. The one from Thailand that comes in discs and pale in colour has been refined, so is not as authentic.
[Note]
Please note this recipe uses 1 standard cup of 250ml, 1 tablespoon of 20ml and 1 teaspoon of 5ml.
Traditionally they are pandan flavoured rice balls made from glutinous rice flour, filled with dark palm sugar and rolled in fresh, finely grated coconut. However I prefer the other version using sweetpotato mixed with glutinous rice flour to make the rice balls, as this will help to keep the rice balls moist for a longer period. Having said that, I wouldn’t recommend keeping them for more than 24 hours though, as onde-onde are best served on the day they are made at room temperature. I have also changed to using desiccated coconut (these are unsweetened finely grated dry coconut) for coating instead of the freshly grated coconut since desiccated coconut are readily available. A note of warning though when you bite into these rice balls because the melted sugar filling inside might squirts or drizzles onto your cloth if not careful!
I like to make these palm sugar rice balls using the pandan and strawberry essence pastes to make them green and red, and these are especially festive during Christmas. For these batch however, I added a third flavour using the durian essence paste – a rainbow colour of onde-onde!
Incidentally, I usually do not use an exact recipe for making these onde-onde, since sweetpotatoes come in different sizes, and different moisture content. So what I do is to steam the sweetpotatoes, mash, then gradually add glutinous rice flour until a soft dough is obtained. Then just wrap with grated palm sugar, boil until cooked and finally coat with desiccated coconut. However in order to write this post up, I went and measured the quantities of the ingredients used so at least there is a definite measurement for future reference.
Makes approx. 21 rice balls.
[Ingredients]
250g peeled kumara (orange-flesh sweetpotato)
150g glutinous rice flour, or as required
pandan, strawberry and durian essence paste, or other essences of your choice
125g palm sugar (gula melaka), or adjust to taste
desiccated coconut, about 1 scant cup
http://cafeoftheeast.blogspot.com/
[Preparation]
1. Peel the kumara and weigh to get 250g of flesh. Cut into slices and put into a shallow bowl, steam for about 20 minutes until soft. Mash the soft kumara, together with all the liquid accumulated in the bowl, with the back of a fork.
2. Grate the palm sugar and divide into 21 little balls of about 1 teaspoon each.
2. While still warm, add the glutinous rice flour to the mashed kumara and knead into a soft, smooth dough. You may need to add a little bit more glutinous rice flour if it sticks to your hand, or if it is too dry, add a little water.
3. Divide the dough into 3 equal portions. Add about 1/2 teaspoon of each essence paste respectively to the 3 dough portions, and knead the essence paste into the dough well. Divide each dough portion into 7 pieces. Before wrapping the filling, let the dough pieces cool down if it is still warm.
4. Wrap a sugar ball inside each dough piece and roll into a ball. If any sugar starts to leak out of the dough (it sometimes happens if the dough is still slightly warm when you start wrapping), just dip the crack in the dough into some extra glutinous rice flour and roll between your palms to seal up.
5. Bring a pot of water to the boil and drop a few dough balls into the boiling water, do not crowd the pot. Stir carefully to prevent dough balls sticking to the bottom of the pot. Cook until the balls float to the surface, about 5 minutes, then cook another minute or so to melt the sugar filling inside.
6. Place the desiccated coconut in a large plate. Use a slotted spoon to fish out the cooked balls and drop immediately into the coconut, making sure they don’t touch each other. Roll each ball to coat completely with the desiccated coconut. Shake to remove extra coconut and place the onde-onde onto a serving platter.
[Tip]
It is recommended you use the dark palm sugar that comes in cylindrical tubes from Malaysia or Indonesia. The one from Thailand that comes in discs and pale in colour has been refined, so is not as authentic.
[Note]
Please note this recipe uses 1 standard cup of 250ml, 1 tablespoon of 20ml and 1 teaspoon of 5ml.
Labels: Kuih-Muih, Teatime Treats
posted by SeaDragon @ 16.8.05
15 Comments:
Cor, the balls sure look delicious, luv everything with gula melaka!
No recipe?? (pls share with us) ....hehehehehe....u are tempting me again - the colours are great. Btw how was the durian paste one?? _k
So colourful. Did the durian ones turned out nicer than gula melaka ones?
Edith, apparently there is a shop/stall that sells durian ondeh2 which is quite nice - can u confirm this? Have u tried it before? *curious* _k
Opps, forgot to mention in my earlier post that the shop/stall is located in Singapore.
Rabbit Sim,
Thanks for dropping by. Gula melaka sure is yummy :) especially when it is melted into syrup like in this case here...
Kirsten,
Hehe, thought it would be easier on my time to divide the post into two stages, so uploaded the photos first, then can just concentrate on the write-up itself :)
The durian one? Not too bad.. but left a lingering durian breath after eating... :p
Precious Moments,
Sorry :p it was not durian filling, it was just flavouring for the rice ball itself, filling is still gula melaka...
Hmmm... Actually this is the first time I've about using durian as filling... Very interesting! Always thought onde-onde have gula melaka filling :)
Dear SeaDragon,
I'm so glad I've found your website, all the food and dessert you made look so delicious (I'm from M'sia too but now I'm living In US, I really miss M'sia food so much). By the way, I try to read your "Daikon Pudding 菜頭粿" article, but the article show up blank page. I wonder if you can teach me how to make your "Daikon Pudding 菜頭粿", I really appreciated your help!
Thank you and have a good day ^^!!
Anna
Hi Anna,
Welcome!
It sometimes happens with this blog that a page will show up blank... What you have to do is adjust your page encoding to 'unicode'... Just go to your menu:
View > Encoding
then choose 'Unicode (UTF-8)'
the page should then show up. If you still have problems, please let me know, yah :)
just to let u know that i tried making these yesterday. They were 'fun' except when I had sappy hands from peeling the sweet potatoes or when I had leaky ondeh2! Overall good though somehow in my mixture I had to add quite a bit of water to make the dough pliable. Even then it was a tad dry. Will definitely try again. tks _k
Btw, some recipes they use a little tapioca, do u know why?
Kirsten,
You did use the orange-flesh sweetpotato, right? But whichever type of sweetpotatoes used, as long as you add enough water (if too dry) to get a soft but non-sticky dough, they should be fine... :) That's why I never used an exact recipe previously, only did the measurement for this batch as a rough guide...
Did a lot of them leak while you wrapped? If the weather is very hot, chill the palm sugar balls in the fridge to harden up before wrapping should help, or you could try just chopping the palm sugar into small chunks instead of grating them to prevent them melting too easily...
I think the addition of tapioca starch is to make the dough taste a bit springy or 'Q-Q'.
Such pretty onde onde :)
Hi Amber,
Thank you :)
thanks for the recipe, i managed to recreate them
http://babeinthecitykl.blogspot.com/2006/06/sweet-potatoes-onde-onde.html
Hi, I just wanna let you know I reproduced your recipe in my blog and credited you back in it. Thanks for such a great post, step-by-step. I'm glad to tell you that I succeeded in my very first attempt and the taste was fabulous!
Quinn,
You're welcome and thanks for letting me know :)
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