About this recipe
Small balls of pandan-tinted glutinous rice dough with a lump of gula Melaka hidden inside, boiled and rolled while wet in freshly grated coconut. The palm sugar melts as they cook, so each one bursts warm and dark when bitten — which is the whole pleasure of eating them and the reason they are served in one mouthful. They belong to the Nyonya kitchen and to Malay kitchens more broadly. The same idea exists across the region: the Javanese klepon taught elsewhere in this book is a close relative, and Indonesian onde-onde refers to a different sesame-coated ball entirely, which makes the naming genuinely confusing and is logged for verification.
Recipe facts
- Yield
- About 22 pieces, serving 6
- Prep
- 35 minutes
- Cook
- 15 minutes
- Total
- 50 minutes
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Spice
- None
Allergens Contains coconut. Vegan and gluten-free. Halal.
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 coating
- 1 1/2 cups (120 g) freshly grated coconut, or frozen grated coconut, thawed
- 1/4 tsp (1.5 g) salt
The dough
- 1 1/2 cups (225 g) glutinous rice flour
- 2 tbsp (18 g) tapioca starch
- 2/3 cup (160 ml) pandan extract — 10 pandan leaves blended with 2/3 cup water and strained — or 2/3 cup (160 ml) water plus 1 tsp (5 ml) pandan paste
- 2 tbsp (30 ml) hot water, if needed
The filling
- 3 1/2 oz (100 g) gula Melaka, chopped very fine or grated
To cook
- 8 cups (1.9 L) water, for boiling
Equipment
- Medium saucepan for boiling
- Steamer, for the coconut
- Slotted spoon
- Shallow tray
Method
- Steam the grated coconut with the salt in a shallow dish for 5 minutes, then spread it on a tray to cool. This keeps it fresh-tasting and stops it souring.
- Make the pandan extract if using fresh leaves: cut 10 pandan leaves into short lengths, blend with 2/3 cup water, and strain through a fine sieve, pressing hard. Discard the fibre.
- Mix the glutinous rice flour and tapioca starch in a bowl. Pour in the pandan extract a little at a time, working it in, until you have a soft dough about the consistency of putty — it should hold a shape without cracking or sticking to your palms. Add the hot water only if it feels dry.
- Rest the dough 10 minutes, covered, then check it again; it firms slightly as it sits.
- Bring the 8 cups water to a gentle boil in the saucepan.
- Take a piece of dough about the size of a large marble, roll it into a ball, flatten it in your palm, put about 1/2 tsp of the fine gula Melaka in the centre, and close the dough over the sugar. Roll it smooth between your palms, making sure there is no crack or thin patch. Repeat with the rest.
- Drop the balls into the boiling water in batches of eight or so, without crowding. They sink at first.
- Cook until they float to the surface, then give them 1 minute more — about 3-4 minutes in total. Underdone centres are gluey.
- Lift each batch out with the slotted spoon, letting the water drain for a moment, and roll them straight away in the steamed grated coconut while they are still wet, so the coconut sticks all over.
- Serve at room temperature the same day, whole, so each one is eaten in a single bite.
The Complete Edition
Ondeh-Ondeh sits in the Malaysia chapter
The book carries this recipe in full alongside the rest of the Malaysia 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.