An Old School Of Snow White Cookies–Mung Bean Cookies or Kuih Koya (绿豆糕)

INTRODUCTION

I blog this purely for the sake of keeping a record of our traditional cookies..This is one of the traditional cookies that grows up with me..

In the 70’s and 80’s, this cookie is very common and in fact, I recalled that during Chinese new year, this is one of the 2 types of moulded cookies that were available. One is the famous Kuih Bangkit which is still quite commonly available and another one is this one.. the green beans cookies (绿豆糕 or lek tao ko) which is less common nowadays.

I called this the sibling of kuih bangkit because of the many similarities in the preparation. Both need simple ingredients, no oil, stir fry the flour until cook, moulding, baked or sun dried and that is it. Both have the texture of melt in the mouth …

I do not expect any people will try this recipe because I believed most do not have the mould, and not even many readers may have seen or heard about this cookies. I posted in 4 Facebook groups, two English speaking, one Indonesian and another Chinese speaking Group. Apparently, those members who aged 40 and above can remember and I was surprised that the method of preparation and the ingredients is the same as Indonesian recipe. In Indonesia, it is called Kue Satu, some called it Putu Kacang Hijau and there are also those who called it as Kuih Koya.

I have tried my very best to prepare this cookies and my moulding was rather lousy. As it is a new mould, it stuck in the mould and the imprint was a bit blur …However, the texture is melt in the mouth..

WHAT IS REQUIRED

Recipe adapted from: Kueh Koya (Green Bean Cookies)

Servings: About 20-30 depending on size of your mould

100 grams green beans flour
30 grams of icing sugar
1-2 Pandan leaves
24 ml of water

STEPS OF PREPARATION

Pre-heat the oven to 150 degree Celsius.

Put the green bean flour (mung bean flour) and pandan leaves in a tray, bake in the pre-heated oven of 150 degree Celcius for about 15 –20 minutes until the Pandan leaves curled up, aroma penetrates the house and look slight brownish. Open the oven door and stir for every 5 minutes. Let the flour cool and add in the icing sugar. Stir until well mixed. Traditionally, the flour and the Pandanus leaves were stir fried at low heat over the stoves. If the stir frying is long enough, the flour can become very brown.

Sift the icing sugar and the cooked mung bean flour into a bowl. Sprinkle the water gradually until it forms a lump. Once done , put some into the wooden kuih koya mould.press hard, level of the excess and dislodge by lightly tagged the side of the mould. Dry the kuih under the sun or bake in the oven at 120 degree Celsius until dry.

CONCLUSION

As I was preparing the Kuih Koya in a rush and the imprint was not good. I will prepare more in the next Chinese New Year and another set of picture will be uploaded. Whether white or brown is all depends on individual. If you want it a bit char and believed that it is more aromatic, you can bake or stir fry a bit longer. However, I used to eat the cookies in this snow white look, therefore I have purposely prepared it as such. Do give it a try for the sake of simple ingredients.

This recipe was included in Page 3 and Page 4 of the following E-book.

For more Chinese New Year related cookies, snack and steamed cake recipes, you can have a copy of “Easy Chinese New Year Recipes – A step by step guide” that was packed with 30 recipes, 60 pages at a reasonable convenience fee of USD3.50. The recipes covered various recipes from auspicious radish cake to nian gao to traditional kuih bangkit to trendy London almond cookies. Of course not forgetting both type of pineapple tarts. You can purchase by clicking the link above. You can either pay using Pay Pal or Credit card account. Please ensure that you have an PDF reader like Acrobat or iBooks in your mobile phone or iPad if you intended to read it in your ipad or mobile phone. Should there be any problems of purchasing, feel free to contact me at kengls@singnet.com.sg and separate arrangement can be made.

Hope you like the post today. Cheers and have a nice day.

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