Monday, August 18, 2008

Pandan Crepe Filled with Sweet Coconut/ Dadar Pandan Kelapa Inti

I was contemplating dessert idea for our weekend party. It was humid hot day/night and we have a super delicious tub of ice-cream in the freezer and we thought, it'd be a nice touch to end the night. Then Vik started to mention cendol/es campur/ ice kacang (Indo/Malay cold drinks usually scented with pandan leaves). Long story short, I started to dig through pantry, decided to make klepon (pandan glutinous rice flour balls) - then ... here is the part when I will sound like a cheap host. Making klepon will involve 'sacrificing' my last bag of palm sugar cones I got from Indonesia. These (the palm sugar) are just not the same with those sold in stores here. Locally made and has distinct depth of flavor and taste. Yeah, I can get somewhat protective over special ingredients like this.

Should have picked up the cylinder shape Gula Aren (just another palm sugar stuff) from grocery store last week. So, next option on the list. It has to be dessert with pandan, cause I love the scent. Husband says 'Something that you can eat with ice-cream will be good, yes?' Though people rarely eat these pandan crepe with ice-cream, but it's possible and completely doable.

First response I got from guests was 'Eww..?? Green food?!' :) But really, who would say no the the earthy fresh smell of pandan and rich creamy sweetness of shredded coconut flakes simmered in palm sugar? We had one leftover and Vik ate it next morning.

What:
For the crepe:
- 200 gr all purpose flour
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- 1 tbsp of sugar
- pinch of salt
- 300 ml coconut milk
- 2 drops of pandan extract or about 25 ml of fresh juice/extract
(I use bottled extract but fresh pandan leaves' extract is completely fine; it's a preferred method actually. Chopped up the leaves, either run it through food processor with few tbsp of hot, or pound it with mortar and pestle, strain the extract)

For the filling:
- 1 pandan leaf, tied to a knot
- 3-4 cups shredded coconut
- 150 gr palm sugar (brown sugar is okay)
- 50 ml thin coconut milk (just thin out canned coconut milk with water. It's absolutely okay to skip the thinning part, it'll just make the filling creamier)
- 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
- pinch of salt

How:
- Make the filling by mixing and cooking all the ingredients together. Stir, make sure flakes are well coated with palm sugar. Filling is done when there is almost no liquid left. Just slighly damp.
- Mix all the crepe ingredients together, whisk. I don't strain it, but my mom and grandmas do, to make sure there is no lumps and stuff.
- Heat a non-stick pan. When hot, pour about 1/4 cup of mixture to pan and tilt the pan so that the mixture coat/spread evenly on the pan. I usually mess up my first one (too thick, not even, too thin, too this or that), but once you get a grip of it (the tilting and such), it's super easy.
- When crepe is set, put about two tbsp of filling to the center, and fold it to a roll shape.

Note: There are couple ways of finishing this up. Make all the crepe and stack them up. Then fill/stuff them all at once. Or, as the crepe sets (still on the pan), fill, and fold. I am accustomed to the latter, so that's what I did. There is also no need of extra oil/butter to the non-stick pan, (it IS afterall a non-stick pan) but also the coconut milk in the crepe batter has enough fat/oil content in it that the crepe should just slide out very easily.

The recipe yields 16. It could have been 20, there was some batter left. But I guess I was over zealous in piling up the stuffing :)

3 comments:

Unknown said...

wawww kerennnnnn i love crepes!!! and the palm sugar made it even better! :)

Anonymous said...

Nice! You had a chance to cook all these good foods when you're soooo far away...
You know what? Tonight we had spaghetti ala Carlo (nothing Indonesian whatsoever!). Anyhoo, I had no idea that you could have sausages for spaghetti. I thought it must be with ground beef.

CECIL said...

Rita, hahaha..thanks! Yeah, I did have to 'let go' some of my treasured palm sugar, but at least, just 1 cone of it. Instead of the entire bag if I were to make klepon.

Lis, thanks for visiting my blog. Luckily, someone knows (read: CARLO!) their way in kitchen.