Name: Kueh Ku (Glutinous Rice Flour Cakes filled with Mung Bean Paste)
Yield: Makes 6 to 10 Servings
Ingredients: 1.2 kg or 2½ pounds mung beans, without skin; 8 pandan leaves, tied into a knot; 1.4 kg or 3 pounds sugar; 90 g or 3 ounces mugwort leaves (daun ramay); 1 cup water black essence; 8 to 10 banana leaves, scalded and then cut into squares each side 10 cm or 4 inches.; 1 cup water; 340 g or 12 ounces white sugar; ½ cup coconut milk; 280 g or 10 ounces sweet potato, peeled and cubed; 110 g or 4 ounces gula melaka, scraped; 170 g or 6 ounces sugar; 21/4 cups coconut milk; 450 g or 1 pound glutinous rice flour; 1/4 cup hot water; ½ cup coconut oil or vegetable oil.; 5 drops red food colouring or ½ teaspoon red food colouring powder; 1 teaspoon pandan essence

Preparation info

Makes
6 to 10
Servings

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Growing Up In A Nonya Kitchen

By Sharon Wee

Published 2012

About

These usually come in red to symbolise good luck. In fact, they can be found in five colours—red, black, blue, green and white—but I have only seen the first two. The recipe below makes the red and black versions. Sweet potato is used here to give a softer texture to the dough, as glutinous rice flour is used in place of the traditional milled rice (which would have produced a sufficiently supple dough by itself). The red kueh were traditionally given to relatives to celebrate a baby’s firs