Kueh Seri Muka

When I saw Doris making her Kueh Seri Muka, I can't help but to drool at it. I like this kind of kueh - glutinous rice and kaya custard. When I have a craving for such kuehs, I will buy them from a famous local nonya bakery store. However, it's not cheap to eat them, even though a small piece will be filling. Since I don't usually make such kuehs, I decided to have a hand in making this. Furthermore, I still have some leftover glutinous rice.

I adapted the recipe from Sonia as she made it in larger quantity. It's really not difficult to make them. As I have dried blue pea flowers in the fridge, I decided to make my glutinous rice blue to give it a nice "nonya" type colour. The kueh seri muka turned out to be really good. The rice was coconuty and salty enough. The pandan coconut layer was firm, but soft and full of pandan and rich coconut taste. The difference in the texture was really good! This is definitely a keeper, and can be made for functions to impress too!

I'm extracting the recipe for my own reference.

Recipe for Kueh Seri Muka, adapted from Nasi Lemak Lover.
Makes a 8" x 8" pan

Ingredients:

Bottom Layer
350g Glutinous rice, soaked with blue pea flowers (optional) for at least 4 hours, then drained [I soaked mine overnight]
200ml Thin Coconut Milk (100ml thick coconut + 100ml water)[I used 200ml Ayam Lite coconut milk]
1tsp salt

Top Layer
2 Whole eggs
130g Caster sugar
100ml Thick pandan paste + pandan water (Blend about 10 pandan leaves with water, then extract the thickest part together with the pandan water to make 100ml) 
400ml thin coconut milk (200ml thick coconut milk + 200ml water)[I used 200ml Kara coconut cream + 200ml Ayam Lite coconut milk]
120g All-purpose Flour
25g Tapioca Flour [I mixed tapioca & potato flour because I ran out of tapioca flour]
¼ tsp salt

Methods:

1. Bottom Layer: Steam glutinous rice with coconut milk and salt for 30 minutes. Rest for about 10 minutes, then transfer and press steamed rice onto a bottom of a 8" square pan.

2. Top Layer: In a mixing bowl, whisk eggs with sugar until sugar is dissolved. Add in pandan water, coconut milk, salt and pandan paste. Mix well.

3. Sift in flours and whisk till well combined. Strain the mixture in a saucepan and rest for 10 minutes. 

4. Cook the mixture over low heat, stirring all the time to ensure it doesn't burn until it thickens slightly. Remove from heat. 

5. Pour the mixture on top of cooked glutinous rice, smooth the top and steam over medium heat for 30 minutes (do not steam over high heat).

5.Cool completely before slicing and serving.

Pulut Tai Tai

I've not seen this kueh, nor tried it before. However, the name would have told you it's malay, it's a kind of kueh, and maybe, it's Nonya? Yes, Pulut Tai Tai, also known as Blue Glutinous Rice Cakes is a traditional Nonya wedding specialty. Why my sudden interest in this nonya kueh? Actually it was not. I was more interested to use up my remaining glutinous rice than anything else! I happened to come across this step-by-step recipe featured in "Food & Travel" magazine dated Sep 2008.

I did not even try to find out more about this food, or compared other recipes, I decided to try this and to use up my glutinous rice. At the same time, my colleague gave me some Blue Pea flowers (Bunga Telang) which is a natural flower dye used in many nonya kuehs. So I wanted very much to use the flowers for colouring. Hence, I decided to try this recipe.


Here's the recipe to share with you.

Pulut Tai Tai (Blue Glutinous Rice Cakes)
Makes about 20 slices of 1" each

Ingredients:
500g Glutinous Rice, rinsed
12-13pcs Blue Pea Flowers*
250g Thick Coconut Milk
1 Banana Leaf (I didn't use this)
Kaya, for spreading

Method:

1. Divide the glutinous rice into 2 bowls, one with 3/4 amount and the other 1/4. Fill each bowl with water until it covers the rice. Drop the food colouring into the 3/4 bowl and stir well. Allow the rice in both bowls to soak overnight.

2. Steam both bowls of glutinous rice separately for 30 to 40mins or until soft.

3. Separately, mix the 3/4 bowl with 175g coconut milk and 75g for the 1/4 bowl. Then steam again for 20 minutes.


4. Cut and clean banana leaf and place them on the bottom of a 10 x 30 x 4 cm cake mould. (As I couldn't get the banana leaf last minute, I used aluminum foil instead).

5. Spread one layer of blue glutinous rice on top of the banana leaf, then layered it with kaya spread. Spread another layer with the white glutinous rice followed by kaya and finish off with another layer of blue glutinous rice. Cover with the banana leaf and set aside to cool.


6. Wrap a knife with cling wrap, to prevent it from sticking, then cut the cake into smaller portions.

* Mix the blue pea flowers with 100g water, then squeeze the flowers until desired colour is obtained. Strain and remove flowers thereafter. If flower is not available, royal blue food colouring is used in its place. 6 to 8 drops of royal blue colouring may be used.

Actually, for most recipes, the kaya is eaten separately with the rice cake. I think it's supposed to be dipped or spread on top of the rice cake. As I found it quite troublesome to keep taking out the kaya to eat with the rice, I decided to spread them in between the layers.

Here are a few other recipes which you can make reference to.
Nonya Kueh Recipes
Fad About Food
Nibbledish