Onde Onde

Cooking was really far from my mind when Ling told me that she had invited some friends to her house to make onde onde. I was tired from running around trying to sort stuff out, cleaning and preparing our new house so that we could move in but I couldn't resist an opportunity to fellowship with friends, old and new!

Ling introduced me to Celia and her 2 sweet girls. Her youngest is 6 mths older than Micah and at the age when they are learning to speak - she is an absolute cherub! The older girl is the same age as Harry and Ben and they were playing nicely together - not quite interested in the babies.

When Sarah came, our party was complete. First off, lunch. Ling whippped up a simple fried rice vermicelli for our midday meal. When the kids were all fed and the bowls were cleared, we started on the recipe which Celia provided - it was handwritten by her mom in a small notebook which we call 'Buku Tiga Lima' and sent to her from Batu Gajah. There were other Malaysian recipes in there which we'll attempt soon.

Buku Tiga Lima which translates to mean

Triple 5 Book

We came to a little roadblock when the recipe called for glutinous rice flour - Ling thought she had some but upon checking her pantry, there was none. So Sarah had to drive Celia out to the shops while we babysat the kids. Ling prepared the other ingredients first - one of them is screwpine essence. She sacrificed a few leaves from her plant - pounded it using a mortar and pestle to make a paste and squeezed to obtain the juice.

When the flour supply came Ling got her hands dirty while we watched her mix the flour with the essence, roll some sticky dough into balls, press the centre to put some palm sugar and then seal it. Sarah helped.

While Ling and Sarah prepared the green onde onde balls to boil in water, Celia 'pushed up her sleeves' and got out the cleaver to cut the coconut into pieces so that it was easier to remove the outer husk. I collected the bits and had to slice off the skin which remained. I took too long - Sarah was better and faster so I stuck with taking pictures!

Celia had to use a huge cleaver

to break the coconut into pieces.

The coconut was then grated so that we could coat the onde onde balls.

Sarah had the honors.

The onde onde was a success!

It would have been too much trouble to make if we were making it alone. Making it with a few food crazy Malaysians (which is a redundant description since all Malaysians are food crazy!) who live away from our home country is definitely fun. We need to do it more often.

Unofficially we've made Sarah, President of the our cooking club and Ling should be the VP. Who else wants to join? I shall stick to taking photos and keeping an account on this blog - and of course, eating!