Onde-onde (Ondeh-ondeh)
Guest Writer: Sea Salt with Food
Recently I received an email from Rasa Malaysia to be her guest writer. Well, my first thought was, what a timely invitation. I was thinking to post something special to celebrate my 7-month old blog. Hence, this is a special post for Sea Salt with Food and being a guest writer on Rasa Malaysia!
Onde-Onde is one of the traditional kuih in Malaysia (kuih is term for Malaysian cakes, pastries if you will). They are either made from sweet potato or glutinous rice flour…
The cute little onde-onde–also spelled as ondeh-obdeh–are infused with pandan (screwpine leaf) juice and filled with “Gula Melaka” or palm sugar and then rolled in with some fresh grated coconut. The palm sugar that’s in it literally bursts in your mouth when you take a bite. They are sweet and delicious.(You can learn more about onde-onde/ondeh-ondeh here.)
I hope you will try this onde-onde (ondeh-ondeh) recipe. They taste great!
Ingredients:
250 g Glutinous Rice Flour
200 ml Pandan Juice
150 g Gula Melaka (Palm Sugar), finely chopped
100 g Grated Coconut
A Pinch Of Sea Salt
Method:
In a large bowl, combine the glutinous rice flour with Pandan juice and knead lightly. Pinch a small piece of the dough (about 40 g) and drop it into boiling water. When the dough rises up the surface, remove it with a slotted spoon and shake off the excess water. Mix it back into the main dough and knead well to form smooth dough. Cover the dough and set aside for about 15 minutes.
Mix the grated coconut with a pinch of salt and steam for about 2 – 3 minutes and let it cool completely.
Bring a pot of water to boil. Pinch a small piece of dough (about 15 g each) and flatten lightly. Fill the center of the dough with palm sugar. Roll them in your palm to form a smooth ball and cook the glutinous rice balls in the boiling water. When the rice balls float to the surface, remove them with a slotted spoon and shake off the excess water.
Coat the rice balls with grated coconut and serve immediately.
Cook’s Note:
To make the Pandan Juice. Blend 10 Pandan leaves with 220 ml water.
Note from Rasa Malaysia:
Gula Melaka is available at AsianSupermarket365.com.
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{ 27 comments… read them below or add one }
I love this but I’m terrible with dough, sounds easy but I’ll be a big mess. You have a beautiful blob & photos. I don’t know how you ladies do it, congrats!
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oops, sorry, just noticed I wrote ‘blob’ instead of ‘blog’.
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I’ve never tried this before.. but the sheer simplicity of the methods combined with minimal ingredients has placed this recipe on my to try list
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I have never tried these onde-onde before but they sure looks cute and I am sure they are very delicious.
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Where can I find freshly grated cocunut?
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Poostz! Oops, the onde-onde just burst in my mouth with the essence :D
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You are really amazing! Your blog is very impressive and I love to read your blog, browse through your great recipes.
It happened that I also had a recipe of ondeh-ondeh, just to share with you. :)
http://carollyl.co.cc/2008/08/14/美味家乡ondeh-ondeh/
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Suanne replied:
Hey, I just posted my recipe on Onde-Onde also. TODAY!
http://chowtimes.com/2009/05/02/onde-onde/
Suanne
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These are so pretty, and the coconut looks delicious!
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I’d love to try them. A trip to the local Oriental Supermarket is in order, methinks!
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Oh we call these “Kelepon” in Indonesian :-)
We also have the chocolate variety of kelepon. Chocolate and palm sugar… yummy!!
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Ondeh ondeh everywhere!!!
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i like the recipe given here…i mean i luv the food..
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These do sound good, but my husband doesn’t like coconut. Any ideas for a substitution?
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wow…i luv the recipe and shots..looks perfect………..
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its loke so delicious and i fell so hungry now
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very interesting. Indonesians call this kelepon and onde-onde is another different things. In Indonesia, onde-onde refers to a fried ball with red bead paste filling and wrapped by sesame.
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
I’ve not heard of kelepon but I have heard some places Malaysia referring to the sesame ball you described as onde-onde.
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The best ondeh-ondeh I had have is from my kampung, sells by an old man during the Pasar Ramathan only,and it just cost 50 cents! but I think it is not easy to make ondeh-ondeh, especially when u wrap the gula melaka with the outer layer~
Really miss this yummy yummy kuih! Thx for ur post! ^^
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One more thing, I’m living in bay area, near Berkeley,
do u know where can I buy the pandan leaves??
I need it to cook nasi lemak~
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
There’s a Ranch 99 in Cerritos, but I don’t think you can find it there. I am able to find them in Vietnamese grocery stores. But I don’t know any near Berkeley.
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i just made it! thanks for the recipe. though i wonder if you had any problems with the skin of the ball bursting as it boils?
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linghui replied:
I’ve tried making a couple of times. Boiling part of the dough till it floats is the key to prevent it from bursting. Reason behind that is because the boiled dough is suppose to act like an elastic wall that expands when you boil it. Another thing you can do is to keep the cover open and boil it over medium small fire, to prevent high pressure, hence bursting it.
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Many traditional onde-onde recipes do not use gultinous rice flour but use mashed sweet potato with some tapioca flour. For the filling, alternatively one can use grated coconut lightly sweeten with gula melaka. This will reduce the overall GI of the onde-onde, suitable for diabetic. In the US, some called sweet potato, yam. Strange!
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
Thanks for the tips, yes, my aunt uses sweet potato with tapioca flour to make her onde-onde.
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very nice! esp with lots of gula melaka inside.
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
Love your blog name. I am going to start a new “Nyonya Food” food blog, looking forward to learn more about Nyonya food in Melaka. :)
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We love onde onde,but cannot get fresh coconut in china.beside what i use for granish.
thanks,
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hi, we can’t get freshly grated coconut here in London unless we buy the old coconut and grate it ourself. is there any alternative? how about using dessicated coconut steamed with some coconut milk? or can we use frozen grated coconut? thanks.
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anyone used brown sugar as a substitute? palm sugar is kind of hard to get here
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Yum, yum, yum! I made these for my malaysian boyfriend and he loved them. They are so simple to make and so delicious.
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we, javanese people called onde-onde as kelepon based on the description in here. i thought we shared the same roots, but to be honest i am bit objected when someone called as malaysian desert. let’s say south east asian rather pointed the finger to specific country. historically most of our culinary heritage came from the same ingredients (gula jawa as gula melaka-they are same and compliment each other). beautiful photos & nice presentation.
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
I didn’t know about kelepon but agree we share the same root. I need to travel to Indonesia more to learn about Indonesian food. Thanks for your comment.
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I can’t get the pandan leaves here but i bought the pandan paste. How much water do I need for kneading the dough with the pandan paste? Thanks! :)
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