Recipe - Kuih Seri Muka

RECENTLY, I harvested quite a lot of blue pea flowers from my garden. Most of us are more familiar with its local name, bunga telang.
This edible flower is commonly used in cooking by extracting its juice to make natural blue food colouring. We can see it in many of our local desserts and kuih-muih, and in savoury dishes such as nasi kerabu and the nyonya rice dumpling.
With the abundance of pandan leaves in my garden too, I decided to try my hand at making a popular kuih called seri muka.
For recipes such as this one that I cannot concoct on my own, I glean the internet and adapt from several recipes for better understanding, and to ensure its success.
Ingredients
» 300g glutinous rice
» 180ml coconut milk, mixed with 20ml water
» 200ml thick coconut milk
» ½ tsp salt
» 3 pandan leaves
» 20-25 blue pea flowers (optional)
» 100ml water, if using blue pea flower
» 3 eggs
» 150g fine sugar (170g if you wish to make it sweeter)
» 20 pieces of pandan leaves, cut into small pieces and blend with 100ml water
» 4 tsp corn starch
» 5 tbsp plain flour
Method
1. If using blue pea flowers, place the water with the flowers in a pot. Bring to a boil and simmer for another five minutes to extract the blue colouring. Leave to cool.
2. Rinse the glutinous rice. Soak two-thirds of the rice in a bowl of water overnight, and the remaining one-third in the cooled blue pea flower water also overnight. If not using blue pea flowers, soak all the glutinous rice in one bowl.
3. To start making the kuih, drain both the white and blue rice. Place them in separate bowls, cut the three pandan leaves into smaller pieces and stick them in between the rice grains.
4. Add the diluted coconut milk and salt into the bowls of rice, and stir to mix evenly.
5. Place in steamer and steam at high heat for 20 minutes.
6. While the glutinous rice is steaming, strain the blended pandan leaves, and squeeze the pulp to extract more of the green juice. You should get at least 100ml of pandan juice.
7. In a bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar, add the thick coconut milk, 100ml pandan juice, corn starch and plain flour.
8. Stir with the whisk until there are no lumps. For a smoother batter, use a sieve to strain the batter into a heatproof bowl.
9. When the glutinous rice has been steamed, remove the pandan leaves from the rice.
10. Grease a loaf tin (9inX4in) or a square baking tin (6inX6in) with a teaspoon of oil.
11. Pour the white glutinous rice into the baking tin, and press down firmly with the back of a tablespoon.
12. When done, add in the blue glutinous rice and press down firmly and evenly.
13. Place the bowl of pandan batter in a pot of simmering hot water like a bain marie, and stir the batter until it thickens.
14. Do not allow lumps to form. The batter should be thick yet rather fluid still.
15. Pour the pandan custard over the glutinous rice in the baking tin. Place the tin in a steamer and wrap the lid of the steamer with a towel to prevent condensation from dripping into the custard.
16. Steam over simmering water for 30 minutes.
17. When done, leave to cool completely, before cutting into smaller pieces to serve.