Tapioca sago pearls are one of the common Southeast Asian ingredients and are used in all manner of desserts. There are as many types of kueh / kuih as there are blends of people in Southeast Asia. This kuih sago is naturally vegan, and a very easy entry-level kueh to make at home!
Kuih sago is a common nyonya kuih (snack/dessert) found all over Singapore and Malaysia. Peranakan or Nyonya cuisine comes from the Peranakans, descendants of early Chinese migrants who married local Malays. A female Peranankan is known as a nyonya, hence the term “nyonya cuisine”. Kuihs are not confined to a certain meal but can be eaten throughout the day.
This kuih uses only a few simple ingredients. The main ingredient is sago, of course! Another important ingredient is pandan. Ideally, you would use fresh pandan leaves, but you can use pandan essence if that’s all you can find.
Kuih sago pandan is delicately fragrant and lightly flavoured. It is not meant to be extremely sweet, so you can have a good number at once! I only used 1/3 cup of sugar in my recipe, but you may like to increase that to 1/2 cup or more if you have a sweet tooth.
You can also use rosewater to create a pink version of this delicious kuih.
Want more pandan desserts? Check out Vegan Kueh Dadar and Khanom Tako.
Ingredients
Instructions
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Blend 2 leaves of pandan with a small amount of water and squeeze all the juice out from the pulp. Leave overnight in the fridge so the thick and thin parts of the juice separates, and carefully spoon out and remove the clearer juice. The leftover dark juice is the pandan concentrate. If you don't have pandan concentrate you can use pandan essence.
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Soak the sago in a large bowl of water for at least two hours. The sago will double or triple in size. Drain well.
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Put the pandan concentrate, sugar, and corn starch in a bowl and mix well.
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Add the sago and mix well. The colour will not look so nice yet, but don't worry.
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Press the sago firmly and evenly into a mould. Steam for 30-40 minutes.
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Allow to cool.
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Remove from mould and cut into little pieces. A wet knife helps!
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Roll the pudding pieces in the coconut (mixed with a small amount of salt if you like) until they are not sticky anymore.
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Ready to eat!
