Malaysian · Dessert
Kuih Talam Pandan
- Advanced
- 35 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, a floral thread lifting the aroma.
Ingredients
- 20 pandan leaves, snipped
- 550 ml water
- 120 g rice flour, for the green layer
- 40 g tapioca starch
- 160 g caster sugar
- 50 g rice flour, for the white layer
- 25 g mung bean flour
- 400 ml coconut milk
- 4 g fine salt
- 10 ml groundnut oil, for the tin
The skills inside
Steaming: basket, leaf and lidStraining & passing through a sieveChilling to firm: the fridge as binder
The words inside
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · peanuts
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Start this the day before: the kuih needs at least 4 hours to cool before it can be cut. Blend the pandan leaves with only 200 ml of the water and strain twice through muslin, squeezing hard, then make the juice back up to 550 ml with the rest of the water. Blending in the small volume is what gives a deep green rather than a wash. 240 min
- Whisk the pandan juice into the 120 g rice flour, the tapioca starch and the sugar, strain, and pour into an oiled 20 cm tin. Steam over a full boil for 25 minutes with a cloth under the lid, until the surface is glossy and firm under a fingertip. 25 min
- Whisk the 50 g rice flour, mung bean flour and salt into the coconut milk, strain, then warm it over low heat, stirring without stopping, until it just thickens to the body of single cream. Take it off before it boils.
- Scratch the set green layer lightly all over with a fork, pour the white layer on, and steam 15 minutes more. 15 min
- Cool completely, at least 4 hours, then cut with an oiled knife, wiping the blade between cuts. 240 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Chilling to firm: the fridge as binder 48 recipes
- It went cold before it was handled any further, and it went in spread flat and covered rather than as a warm mass that insulates its own centre.
- It is cold through rather than cold at the edge: tested at the middle it is as firm as it is at the rim.
- It holds its shape unsupported; it can be cut, portioned, rolled or lifted without slumping, tearing, or sticking to the hands.
- The fat in it has gone solid: it feels firm and waxy to the fingers rather than greasy and yielding.
- It survives the step it was chilled for, going into heat or a coating or a mould still holding its form rather than collapsing the moment it is touched.
Where it goes wrong It was given twenty minutes instead of the hours it needed, so it is firm at the rim and soft at the core: it slumps out of shape as it is portioned, and everything made from it spreads or breaks apart in the pan.
Steaming: basket, leaf and lid 130 recipes
- Steam was running before the food went in: the water at a rolling boil and vapour coming steadily through the basket, rather than the whole thing warming up together.
- Nothing touches the water at any point: the food sits clear of it throughout, and the level neither drops enough to boil dry nor rises enough to wet it.
- The lid stayed on. Every lift costs the chamber its heat, and the number of lifts should be as close to none as the dish allows.
- Lifted out, the surface is glossy and plump with its colour heightened rather than dulled: greens brighter than they went in, not olive.
- Cooked through with the shape intact: it yields at the centre without having slumped or split, and there is no more than a spoonful of clean condensate beneath it.
Where it goes wrong The lid was loose or dripping and the condensate fell back onto the food, so it arrives waterlogged and pale with its seasoning washed down into the bottom of the dish.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Demi-sec Champagne
- Also Right
- Off-dry Chenin (Vouvray)
- From the Taps
- Fruited sour
- Zero-Proof
- Coconut water with lime
Tropical sweetness wants bubbles or Chenin’s honeyed acid: richness met with lift, not more weight.
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