I did it! I finally made a decent seri kuih muka all by myself. It is such a sweet little triumph. I need to give myself a little pat on my back.
I love having food in small servings, so eating kuih is a good way to keep me going without feeling like I’ve had too much. This kuih is delicious because it has coconut milk cooked in both the rice and the custard. If you do not like your delicacies too sweet, you can add in less sugar too. The glutinous rice cooked in coconut milk forms the base, and then the custard forms the second layer. There are only two layers, so it’s a lot easier to cook compared to other kuihs too. The custard is very similar to any other pandan custard cooked in cakes and smaller bites (see Pandan Cake recipe). When there are leftovers of the pandan custard (unfortunately none remained in this attempt), I will leave them in the fridge and eat them as a spread with my bread slices.
This week is the second weekend of Hari Raya Puasa festivity season. I hereby wish all my Muslim colleagues Selamat Hari Raya Adilfitri!
Ingredients:
- Glutinous rice: 400g, soaked overnight
- Coconut milk: 400ml + 200ml
- Salt: 3/4 tsp
- Pandan leave: 2, washed & knotted + 10, cut into short strips
- Blue pea flower (optional): 10, pigment released in 4 tbsp water
- Water: 200ml
- Large egg: 3
- Caster sugar: 140g
- Corn starch: 5 tbsp
- Plain flour: 3 tbsp
Method:
- Strain glutinous rice into a steaming tray (greased).
- Mix together 400ml coconut milk with salt. Pour into rice. Mix well.
- Place 2 knotted pandan leaves onto rice. Steam 20min.
- Discard leaves. Pour blue pea flower pigment into rice, leaving random trails.
- Stir to mix. Spread the rice out and press down to make it compact. Set aside.
- Blend 10 pandan leaves in 200ml water.
- Strain and squeeze out juice, discarding the rest. There should be about 150ml pandan juice.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together 200ml coconut milk, eggs, sugar, corn starch & plain flour.
- Add in 150ml pandan juice. Strain into a saucepan.
- Cook over low fire till thickened, making sure you remove from the heat once you notice it is showing signs of curdling.
- Return tray of rice into steamer with boiling hot water.
- Pour custard over rice. Steam 20min on low till custard sets.
- Cool for 1hr before slicing.
Tricks:
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Be really careful when you are cooking the custard as it will curdle very quickly if you aren’t looking. I learnt my lesson the hard way the first time I was making this kuih, getting distracted over unwashed pots and pans and had my custard cooked instead of thickened. By then, it was too late to salvage.
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Use a square tin so that both the rice and the custard are of equal (and sufficient) height to make for a nice kuih. I used my good old round one here, so it’s slightly flatter and shorter, but still tastes great nevertheless!
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I get really happy and excited whenever I get to use the blue pea flowers that we grow ourselves. Nowadays I pluck the flowers off when they are dried out and store them in the fridge so they are ready to be uses whenever I need them!
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Dip the knife in water to wet it before slicing the kuih so that the edges of the kuih are neat and tidy. I didn’t though, because I’m such a lazy bum!
Serving:
15 – 18 small slices
