Steamed Pudding Recipes - long (OOP) was Re: SC - Spotted Dick/Spotted Dog

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

>At the lunch-mall next to campus at UC-Irvine, 'C for Cha' recently 
>opened.  They sell a drink involving black or green tea, optional 
>fruit juices, optional condensed milk and optional 'pearls'. (It 
>takes several tries to work out what combination of the above is 
>tasty to you.)  The drinks come with a really wide straw--at first 
>it's a little disconcerting to have lumps of starch come up the 
>straw, but then the texture of the pearls in your mouth is kind of 
>neat. The whole fruit-starch-milk combination makes for a very 
>filling drink.  A large one will do for a light lunch.
>
>Bonne

Ah! You haven't lived until slippery shreds of young coconut come 
slithering up your straw and squirt!flop! into your mouth.

For those who don't know, young coconut does not have that hard, 
brown, hairy shell. You have to hack through the green outer layer 
and the thick fibrous middle layer to get to the insides. An old 
coconut had firm opaque white meat firmly adhering to that hard shell 
with coconut water inside. But when it is young there isn't as much 
differentiation between the meat and the water. The meat is very 
thick, translucent, and liquidy, kinda slippery and tastes quite 
different from the old meat.

Young coconut is a treat in countries where the coconut palm grows, 
just scooping the "coconut jelly" out of the husk. I know that around 
here we can sometimes find then in really good produce markets.

In Indonesia, it is often grated and added to a mixture of sweet 
syrup and water. One of my favorite drinks was a stirop of vanilla 
syrup and water with crushed ice and grated young coconut, jack fruit 
(nangka in Indonesia, langka in the Philippines), and avocado (it's 
always a fruit in Indonesia).

Another favorite was cendol (pronounced chen-doll). Made of mung bean 
flour, which is colored green and flavored with pandan and pressed 
through something (i made holes in the bottom of a coffee can with a 
BIG nail) into boiling water, where they cook briefly until done. 
Then drained and served in syrup and water. Fun to play with.

Anahita