Colors of the Mountain

The featured ingredient for this month's Little Thumbs Up Event is Pandan and it has been inspiring to say the least.  Just hop over to Joceline's blog and you will know what i mean. One can make a book out of it!  A whole lot of good food in beautiful shades of green.  Pandan is one splendid source of natural food colouring, besides color, it infuses the food with a very unique fragrance.  I always enjoy seeing how this natural dye works, you need quite a few leaves though. So, here's one last round of color me food green, before the event ends.

Abok abok sago is a simple Malay kuih with sago as its key ingredient.  And i mean really simple, all that it takes is to steam the sago.  There are  many ways of presentation though, one would be to steam it in a tray then cut it into pieces and roll it in grated coconut, some in a single color, some with gula melaka sandwiched in between and another would  be to mix the sago with coconut and wrap them in banana leaves in a cone shape before steaming them. I chose the latter simply because they photograph better! 

Typically, one will get abok abok sago which are either infused with pandan (green color) or rose water (red color).  I did a 4 colored one instead.  And this was inspired by one of Terri's (of Hunger Hunger blog) beautiful entries which she name Jelly Kinabalu (highest mountain in Malaysia) for a competition using a jelly mould that was also designed with inspirations from the mountains.  I followed her through the month of the competition (and it's already two years now) and some of her amazing creations remain fresh in my mind till today.  So, here i am trying to pay tributes to the mountains, my way :)

And in case you are wondering how the colors relate to the mountains. Quoting Terri, "The white represent the clouds, the blue for skies, green for the greenery on the mountains and brown for land!" The green came from Pandan extract while the blue came from Bunga Telang (Blue pea flower), the 2 natural food dye that are widely used in this part of the world.  The brown layer came from mixing the sago with palm sugar and white is its original color.  

A piece of the mountain...

Served with a drizzle of palm sugar syrup 

Recipe
Reference:  Happy Flour for base recipe

Ingredients

• 200g sago
• 1/2 coconut (grated)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 30g palm sugar (grated)
• 5 blades of pandan leaves
• 15 dried bunga telang
• Around 3 tbsp caster sugar
• Around 3 tbsp of water 

Steps

1. Cut out banana leaves in rectangular shapes of around 22 by 15 cm.
2. Scald banana leaves in boiling water just enough to soften it (Not too long else it will turn black).  Wipe dry and set aside.
3. Divide sago into 4 portions of 20g (white layer), 40g (blue layer), 60g(green layer) and 80g (brown layer).
4. Soak them in water.
5. Wash, cut and blen pandan leaves with some water (must be enough to soak sago).  Strain to collect extract.
6. Wash and boil bunga telang in some water (must be enough to soak sago) to obtain blue coloring. Strain to collect blue extract.
7. Wash and drain portion of sago for green layer and replace the water pandan extract.
8. Wash and drain portion of sago for blue layer and replace the water with blue extract.
9. Leave all portions of sago to soak for around 1 hour.
10. Drain and wash away starch from sago.
11. Divide coconut in proportion with sago amount for each layer (i did not weigh, just eyeballed)  and mix with sago.
12. Add grated gula melaka to portion of sago for brown layer.  
13. Add 1 tsp sugar to white portion, 1/2 tbsp to blue portion and 1 tbsp to green portion.
14. Add 1 tsp water to white portion, 1/2 tbsp to blue portion and 1/2 tbsp to green portion.  Mix well.
15. Fold banana leaves into cones.  Add one portion of the colored sago into the cone one after another to fill up the cone. Press lightly after each layer.
16. Fold up the banana leave to cover the opening.  Secure with toothpicks if fold is loose.
17. Steamed in rapid boiling water for around 15 minutes. 
18. Serve with palm sugar syrup on the side.

Syrup for Drizzling
Melt 30g palm sugar with 70ml of water until it is slightly thicken in a small pot.

I am submitting this post to Little Thumbs Up "Pandan" event hosted by Joceline @ Butter, Flour & Me, organized by Zoe@ Bake for Happy Kids and Mui Mui @My little favourites DIY