Nien Kau with Grated Coconut
This is Nien Kau (mandarin).
They are make from sugars (lots and lots of them) and glutinous rice flour. The mixture was then steam in high heat for 24 hours till they turned brownish and sticky.
Some people like to eat them fresh which can be very sweet. But I preferred mine with grated coconut.
This is how you make it:
- If you have a weeks old or harden nien kau, steam them for approximately 20 minutes. If you want a shorter steaming time, you may cut the harden nien kau into slices. Line them on a plate before steaming them for 5 minutes.
- Tell the sundry shop that you want the grated coconut for eating and not for squeezing santan (milk). This is to make sure the man grate only the white part of the coconut and not touch the shell at all.
- Sprinkle 3/4 teaspoon of salt on the grated coconut.
- Lastly, coat nien kau with coconut.
Other than the above method, you can also deep fried them into fritters with yam or sweet potatoes. Or how about some bubur cha-cha with nien kau? *drooling!*
day-dreamer said,
February 19, 2008 @ 12:09 am
Yeah, this is very nice. There was once when we had this too many times until I got scared of it. Haha.
selena said,
February 19, 2008 @ 5:50 am
aagghh, no fair! i haven’t eaten this for 20 years 🙁 and it’s impossible to find proper decent nien-gao in Mcr, and I mean the proper M’sian type, not the crappy plasticky impot from China type.
bah humbug (jeez, this is turning out to be my favourite phrase this CNY)
sila said,
February 20, 2008 @ 9:17 am
wait – i’m a bit confused. do you first have to steam the nien kau for 24 hours, then a week later if it gets hard then you can steam it again for 20 minutes and dip in the grated coconut? sorry if this is a silly question but i never knew how this was made.. 🙂
The Queen says: Yup. You got them right. So soften the whole nien kau, you have to steam them for about 20mins. Unless you cut them into thin slices. That should take less than 5 minutes.
Annie Q said,
February 20, 2008 @ 12:31 pm
I still like it to be fried coated with egg or just fried like that. I like fattening food! hahahahahahha..sinful!
Giddy Tigress said,
February 21, 2008 @ 3:50 pm
One of my favorite CNY foods, which I did not taste this time around. SIGH