Palm Sugar Glutinous Cassava Rice Cake

Cheong Yee Siang 03111575

Wajik Ubi Kayu (Palm Sugar Glutinous Cassava Rice Cake)

About Palm SUgar Glutinous Cassava Rice Cake 

This dessert are originally from the Orang asli and also the Malay that stay at Kelantan ,some nyonya people also making this type of dessert. For Orang Asli and Malay the wajik that they make sometime are not using the cassava, sometime they can make it without the cassava or other ingredient such as durian or sirat. For the nyonya people, the wajik ubi kayu that they make are not that sweet compare with the wajik make by Orang Asli and Malay . The wajik ubi can be easily found at my hometown, the Kelantan state from the hawker-stalls or from the Malay kuih seller, some Malay cuisine restaurant also served wajik ubi kayu as their dessert. Wajik Ubi Kayu are a National Heritage, this is because this dessert are make by the original people of malaysia, which these people we also call as Orang Asli. Thus this dessert is also well known among our races in our country such as Malay and Chinese, and even some of the Chinese also know how to cook this dessert. 

Online Recipe

I have found an online recipe of making wajik ubi kayu from resipi-dulu-dan-kini.blogspot.com, which are very simple. the ingredient that are use to make are just a few, which is 2 kg of cassava, 250g of glutinous rice, soaked overnight,150g of palm sugar chopped into small pieces ,50g of soft brown sugar,100ml water,150ml thick coconut milk, half tsp salt,2 pandan leaves, knotted. There are just a few simple step to cook this dessert, first step is drain the glutinous rice with the cassava together and place in a shallow heat-proof dish. Mix in the salt. Steam rice over rapidly boiling water for 20 minutes or until just cooked. (Do not worry if the rice grains appear dry and tough; this is the way they should be.)Secondly put water, both sugars and screw pine leaves in a pan. Stir and cook over low heat until sugar dissolves. Simmer syrup for about 10 minutes. Strain the syrup. Next, place syrup, coconut milk in a wok. Cook over medium high heat, stirring constantly until the mixture is thick and syrupy and the surface is full of bubbles. Then ,add the steamed rice and cassava Stir constantly until mixture is thick and sticky. The wajik should be quite gooey. Turn mixture out onto a shallow tray lined with a pandan leaf. Allow to cool and harden, then cut into serving-sized pieces.

Real Life Interview Recipe

The woman who i interviewed was my aunt, her name is Ms Wu Mei Jiao, She was born and raised in Malaysia and now live in Northern California, USA with her wonderful husband Carlos.The reason i find her to interviewed is because she love to cook and she know to cook a lot of stuff, including Wajik Ubi Kayu.By the way she also have her own blog (nenekmummykeuken.blogspot.com) which she always teach people how to cook in the blog. I was lucky because she came back Malaysia for visiting my grandma and i was able to ask her to show me how she cook the wajik ubi kayu.

First of all my aunt prepare some simple ingredient which is the glutinous, palm sugar, pandan leave and coconut milk, coconut cream and some cassava which is also the ubi kayu. Firstly my aunt Soaked 1 cup of glutinous rice in water for at least 4 hour ,then she wash and drain the rice. next Wash and cut 5 pandan leaves and place leaves in a  pan. Next she cover the leaves with drained rice. As in the picture no. 4 . Afterward , she Steam rice for about 20 minutes, after the rice was cooked she fluff rice with a fork so that the sticky rice will not stick at the steamer. After that she cooked the palm sugar into liquid form and Mix those sticky rice with 1/3 cup thick coconut milk and return the glutinous rice to steamer and steam for further 10 to 15 minutes.

after that she took a pan and add the palm sugar syrup which she just boiled just now with a 1 cup of coconut cream and keep stirring until boiling and thickened and then add into the steamed rice.

Mix well the rice and syrup and keep stirring over low heat until the steamed rice become very sticky and line the pan with cling film then put the wajik ubi kayu into pan and keep aside to cool.

After the dishes are cooled, she take out the palm sugar Glutinous cassava rice cake and cut in the shape that she like.

Differences

To compare the ingredient and the step of doing the palm sugar glutinous cassava rice cake from the online recipe and the recipe that i have interviewed from ms Wu Mei Jiao are slightly different. For example from the online recipe they did not use coconut cream but just using the coconut milk to mix with the steam rice but my aunt did use some coconut cream and coconut milk to mix with the steamed rice and it have make the dishes have a better smell. Furthermore, most of the step are quite same because this dishes is a national heritage where it is originally from malaysia, so even chinese or malay the step the take to cook this cassava rice cake are quite the same. But maybe for my aunt as a chinese we like to eat sweet thing therefore she came out with a idea adding the coconut cream into the steamed rice. Also , the culture of both dishes are actually same culture which is the local malay culture, because my aunt told me that she learned this dishes from one of the close malay friend.

 For my opponion, after trying different type of cooking style for this palm  sugar glutinous cassava rice cake , i think that the palm sugar glutinous cassava rice cake that cooked by ms Wu Mei Jiao are a lot more tastier than the online recipe cassava rice cake. This is because of the adding of the coconut cream which strengthen the taste of cassava and also the smell of coconut. when i took the first bite from my aunt's rice cake, the coconut smell and the cassava taste are automatically full up in my mouth,and It was very delicious!