Onde Onde

- Indonesian Coconut Palm Sugar treats -

I can't describe my surprise upon first trying onde onde. Onde Onde is an chewy Indonesian dessert made of a pandan-flavoured glutinous rice flour dough wrapped around palm sugar, and doused in freshly grated coconut. The friend who first introduced me to these had warned me to keep my mouth closed as I bit into it, and I'm thankful she directed me to, because the fun of these treats is that in the steaming process, the palm sugar turns into a syrup, so when you try one, you'll feel like it explodes in your mouth, palm sugar rushing out everywhere.

It was after over a year of eating these treats, and months and months of imagining making them myself that I finally tried my hand at them. It turns out that actually making them is very simple. You just make a simple dough with glutinous rice flour, make little parcels of dough filled with chopped palm sugar, boil them briefly until they float, and then coat them in coconut.

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However, the trick with these goodies (and it's a significant one) is that once you douse them in coconut, the coconut will only keep fresh for a few (maximum appx. 3) hours. It was to my utter embarrassment that after making this batch of onde onde that I brought a few to my school to share with fellow teachers, only to find out that the coconut had already gone sour by lunch time. Therefore, I suggest if you want to make these, and you do somehow get your hands on freshly grated coconut, you either make them and serve them within an hour, or if you want to make them to serve the next day, then I'd suggest you make the treats and boil them, but then stow them in the fridge without coconut, and when you want to serve them, briefly steam them, and roll them in the fresh coconut. The joys of living in a tropical country. Never in my life in Canada would I have even dreamt of a food item going sour so quickly. But if you're ready to plan your cooking and serving rather carefully, these goodies are well worth the effort - AND they're gluten-free! Which is a plus for many people.

Onde Onde

Ingredients:

• 150g glutinous rice flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 drops pandan paste, or green food colouring if desperate
• *just* enough water until the dough comes together
• 1/2 hockey-puck sized chunk of palm sugar, finely chopped
• grated flesh from 1/2 a coconut

Directions:

1. Mix together the flour, water, salt and pandan paste into a rather thick dough
2. Let sit, covered, for a few minutes as you chop the palm sugar
3. Take a walnut sized piece of dough, flatten it in your hand, and add about 1/2 tsp of palm sugar in the center. Close the dough over the sugar and role it into a ball. 
4. Repeat step 3 until you have used up all of the dough
5. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Boil onde onde, a few at a time, until they float at the top of the water. (It should take about 3 minutes). Drain in a sieve briefly.
6. If you will be serving the onde onde right away: Fill a shallow pie pan with the grated, fresh coconut, and douse each cooked onde onde in the coconut before moving to a serving plate.
7. If you will be serving the onde onde the next day: place the cooked, drained onde onde in a tupperware in the fridge (being careful not to let them stick together). The next day once you're ready to serve, briefly heat them in a steamer to soften the dough and make it sticky, before draining them, and dousing the with grated coconut.
   
   Serve with tea or coffee, or other snacks.

Enjoy!