Saturday 23 June 2018

Ang Ku Kueh (Red Tortoise Cake)红龟粿 - Yellow Ku Kueh




23Jun2018
Daughter saw a TV program on traditional kueh(chinese cake) and said "mummy , I feel like eating ang ku kueh..."

This motivated me to venture into making this traditional chinese cake which I like eating it when I was a child. This kueh comes in different types of fillings like peanuts , coconut and green bean. 

Personally, I like green bean and coconit fillings. Peanuts fillings is my least choice. 

In order to avoid using artificial colourings, I used pumpkin instead. So, when pumpkin was mixed with flour and coconut milk, it turns into yellow instead of orange. I was expecting orange kueh, but no, it looks more like lemon. Haha...

Yes, this cake is usually red in colour. "Ang" in chinese mean red. Ang ku kueh is also called red tortoise cake as the mold is a shape of tortoise shell. Chinese believe that tortoise has long life and so eating this will bring longevity and good fortune and prosperity. In the past, chinese family like to give this
as a gifts to relatives and friends when their new born baby turns one month old - it is also called full month or 满月。

After several search in google for recipe, I suddenly remembered my aunt 婶婶 is an expert in kueh making. She has been making this kueh for at least 30years. So I rang her up to ask for recipe. This is my aunt recipe but I have made some modification.

Please note the measurement are just an estimation because I did not measure but based on the texture and description given by my aunt.


Ingredients - Fillings:
250g -300g split green beans
Water for soaking
100g sugar
Oil 
2-3 stalks Pandan leaves

Ingredients - ku kueh skin
300g glutinous flour
63g icing sugar
4 oz oil

50g rice flour
3/4 cup water

250g coconut milk

Pumpkin(with skin & seeds is 500g)
water
Pandan leaves

Banana leaves

Method:
Fillings
1. Wash the split green bean until water is clear. Put water cover 1cm above beans for 2hours. Then remove water.  Rinse and discard water. Boil water in wok/steamer Place soaked beans and pandan leaves in a wide tray and place tray into steamer to steam for 30mins or until beans are soft. Stir once in a while.

2. After beans is cooked or soften, transfer into a food processor to blend until it is fine in texture. Like the one in picture.


3. Place the blended into a non-stick wok with medium low heat, add in sugar and gradually add oil bit by bit. Until you can roll the beans fillings into balls. I did not measure oil as I just pour, approximate a quarter of 250mil. You may add more sugar and oil to your desire taste and texture. Once it is done set aside let it cool. Then roll into small balls of your desire size. Mine is approximate 30g.

Method - Kueh Skin

1. Mix rice flour with 3/4 cup water in a saucer and bring it to boil. Keep stiring. The mixture will be thicken and a little translucent. Do not over cooked. It should be soft texture like thick porridge. Off the heat.

2. Rinse and remove pumpkin skin and seeds. Cut into wadges. Put pumpkin wadges into a small pot then add water that is enought to cover them and bring it to boil. Remove from heat once pumpkin is soft. Remove the pumpkin from water and puree pumpkin by going through a seive. Keep the water that was use for boiling pumpkin
Note: in future I will try steaming instead of cooking over fire in water.

3. Put coconut milk and pandan leaves  in a saucer and bring them to boil. Remove from fire when it os boiled.

4. In a large bowl, place glutinous flour , icing sugar, oil, pumpkin puree, thick rice porridge, oil and half the amount of coconut milk into the mixture. Mix them together to form a soft dough. If it is too dry, then slowly add in the rest of coconut milk and the water from cooking pumpkin. 
Note: how much coconut milk and water will depend on how wet the pumpkin puree is? If puree is dry, then more liquid will be required.

5. Roll the dough into 30g balls.

6. Prepare a mould. Dust with glutinous flour. Flatten the 30g dough and wrap with 30g bean fillings. Press it into the mould then knock it out and place it on a piece of cleaned banana leave. Continue to wrap the rest.

7. Steam the kueh in boiling water for 7mins. Serve when it has cool down.


















No comments:

Post a Comment