It's finally warm again here in the city. That means, I can save my poor plants after all. I'm all hopeful :).
This week, I am the hostess at Our Beautiful World.
The prompt I'd picked for us is;
' CHILL '
Every time I go to the flea market, I'll make a bee line to my favorite restaurant that sells some nice icy desserts. We have many versions of shaved ice, some times too colorful for words!:).
This one is called Cendol.
Cendol is a popular dessert in Southeast Asia especially Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Brunei. Made of shaved ice or ice cubes, creamy coconut milk, palm sugar syrup (gula melaka), pandan leaves flavored 'noodles' or jelly and red bean toppings. You can enjoy Cendol at the end of a meal, with a meal or on its own.
A refreshing dessert on a hot afternoon.
Sometimes, the 'toppings' are (ironically) hidden underneath all the ice, which is fun digging through the 'snow'. My mom never made this at home, but my grandma had once taught me how to make it from scratch (except, for the store-bought palm sugar cubes). We even shred our own coconut to make fresh coconut milk, siting on a wooden bench shredder like one of these. How neat, that I also found a shredding coconut demo by Su-Mei Yu :).
My grandma made me stir the bubbling hot green pudding-like cendol on the stove. Wait, maybe I volunteered!. We filled a pot (full of holes at the bottom) with cendol dough, stirred while pressing it through the holes.
It was fun watching the green strands dropped into awaiting bowl of cold water. However, the stirring-on-the-stove-part was tricky as fencing for a petite, ten year old me :). If you have access to oriental market that sells Asian ingredients, you may try make some Cendol using this recipe. Good luck!.
No matter where you are in the world, share with us what 'Chill' means to you. Maybe 'chilling' out in the sun, or just enjoying the 'chilly' weather. We love to hear your stories!. Just link up your photos at Our Beautiful World this week :). See you soon!. Hugs.
