About this recipe
Soft green rice-flour strands in coconut milk and dark palm sugar syrup, served over ice. The green comes from pandan, not food colouring, and the syrup should be treacly rather than merely sweet. Closely related versions are made across the region under other names, so this recipe teaches the Indonesian one rather than a blend.
Recipe facts
- Yield
- 4 tall glasses
- Prep
- 25 minutes (plus 30 minutes chilling)
- Cook
- 20 minutes
- Total
- 75 minutes
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Spice
- None
Allergens Contains coconut. Vegan and gluten-free. Contains no dairy.
Development draft. This is an untested development recipe from the cookbook project. It has not been kitchen-tested, and the quantities and timings are the author’s working draft rather than a verified result.
Ingredients
The cendol strands
- 3/4 cup (100 g) rice flour
- 3 tbsp (25 g) tapioca starch
- 2 cups (475 ml) water
- 1/3 cup (80 ml) pandan extract, from about 10 pandan leaves blended with water and strained
- 1/4 tsp (1.5 g) fine sea salt
Palm sugar syrup
- 7 oz (200 g) dark palm sugar (gula jawa or gula melaka), chopped
- 1/2 cup (120 ml) water
- 1 pandan leaf, knotted
- Pinch of salt
To assemble
- 1.5 cups (360 ml) coconut milk
- 1/4 tsp (1.5 g) fine sea salt
- Plenty of crushed or shaved ice
Equipment
- Medium saucepan
- Cendol press or a colander with 3 mm holes
- Large bowl of iced water
- Small saucepan for the syrup
Method
- Make the syrup: simmer the palm sugar, water, pandan leaf and salt until dissolved and slightly thickened, about 8 minutes. Cool and remove the leaf.
- Stir the coconut milk with the 1/4 tsp salt and refrigerate.
- Whisk the rice flour, tapioca starch, water, pandan extract and salt in a saucepan until completely smooth.
- Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a spatula, 6–9 minutes. The mixture will thin, then thicken abruptly into a stiff, glossy, translucent paste that pulls away from the sides.
- Working quickly while hot, press the paste through a cendol press or a colander held directly over the bowl of iced water, so short strands drop through and set.
- Leave the strands in the iced water 10 minutes to firm, then drain.
- Chill the strands, syrup and coconut milk separately for at least 30 minutes.
- To serve, divide the strands between four tall glasses, add a generous spoonful of palm sugar syrup, top with crushed ice and pour over the salted coconut milk.
- Serve immediately with a long spoon, letting the drinker stir it together.
The Complete Edition
Es Cendol sits in the Indonesia chapter
The book carries this recipe in full alongside the rest of the Indonesia chapter, the pastes and dips it is built on, and the twenty-seven pantry studies that open the collection.
In review with Amazon KDP
Both editions have been submitted to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing and are currently in review. Submitted prices are $9.99 for the kindle edition and $49.99 for the paperback. Neither is on sale yet, and prices are as submitted rather than final.