Apart from ginger, pulut is another of my favourite ingredient. I love everything with pulut such as ‘Bak Chang’/Glutinous Rice(肉粽), nasi kunyit, ‘ang ku kueh’, kueh talam and many more.

Unfortunately, I have to reduce my intake of pulut (glutinous rice) delicacies due to my sensitive digestive system!

A few years ago, I used to have ‘ang ku kueh’ (红龟粿) for breakfast almost every day, except on weekends.

However, one day I noticed the ‘ang ku kueh’ sold at my work place is no longer tasty. The skin was not as chewy as before and the filling was tasteless like plain sugar paste.

It’s really difficult to find delicious and authentic ‘ang ku kueh’ these days.

Now, every time, I see ‘ang ku kueh’ at any stalls, I have to think twice before buying them.

The only logical option was to make my own. Of course, not being an expert in kueh-making, I had to do tonnes of research – for good recipes, how to make my own filling and preparing the glutinous rice skin. Sound intimidating? Once you get the hang of it, it’s actually quite simple.

For the filling, you can get canned red bean paste. Being a hands-on person, I preferred to make my own. Red Bean Paste. I used about half-a-day to prepare it and kept it in the freezer.

Then, I made the dough for the skin on a different day.

Makes: 18 ang gu kueh/ ang ku kueh
Dough Making: 30 minutes
Assembling & Moulding: 20 minutes
Steaming: 8-10 minutes.

For skin

Ingredients:

200g sweet potatoes, steamed and mashed
380g glutinous rice flour, sifted. Extra for dusting.
200ml water
50g caster sugar
3 tbsp vegetable/corn oil, extra for oiling
1 tbsp tapioca flour
2 big banana leaves, some cut into 18 small pieces (8×8 cm) and boiled in hot water briefly
2-3 drops red food colouring
1 medium sized ang ku kueh mould

For the small boiled dough:

50g glutinous rice flour
40ml water
*This boiled dough is to make the skin more elastic and less likely to break apart when assembling and moulding.

How-to:

1. Steam your sweet potatoes till soft, and mashed them up. The finer the better.

I used yellow sweet potatoes. Or you may use the orange or purple coloured sweet potatoes. Then you don’t need food colouring.

The sweet potatoes is to add flavour to the skin and give it a more chewy texture.

2. When steaming the sweet potatoes, you can make a small dough with about 50g glutinous rice flour and 40ml water. Then boil the dough in hot water till it floats. Set aside to cool.

3. Mix your glutinous rice, tapioca flour, sugar and mashed sweet potatoes together. Add in the water bit by bit with the small boiled dough and start mixing them together and knead them into a dough.

If your dough is still too sticky, add some glutinous flour. The dough should not stick to your hands.

3. Then add in the oil one teaspoon at a time, and knead till it’s smooth and shiny.

4. I split the dough into 2 portions. I left one portion as it is. I added some red food colouring to the other portion and mixed it well.

5. Dust your working surface and hands with some glutinous rice flour. Roll your dough into 1 inch thick long dough. Cut into 18 small pieces, about 1 to 1 1/2 inches wide.

6. Prepare 18 red bean paste balls, about an inch in diameter.

7. Flatten the small dough in your palm, about 2-3mm thickness. Then put the red bean paste onto the middle of the flattened dough and wrap into a ball.

8. Dust your mould with some glutinous rice flour before you mould your kueh.

9. Grease your 8cm x 8cm banana leave surface before placing the moulded kueh on it.

10. Put your ready-to-steam ang ku kueh into a tray covered with banana leaves. Leave a 2-inch space between each kueh to prevent them from sticking together.

11. Brush your moulded kueh surface with a thin layer of oil.

12. Steam for about 8-10 minutes. Don’t over-steam, or the ‘ang ku kueh’ will be too soft and start melting. When your ‘ang ku kueh’ get too soft and starts to flatten, the pattern will look distorted.

13. Remove your ‘ang ku kueh’ from your wok and leave them to cool.

This was my second try.

During my first try, I tried using the blue pea flowers juice to make the blue colour ‘ang ku kueh’. But it didn’t turn out well.

When the blue juice mixed with the yellow sweet potaoes, the ‘ang ku kueh’ turned green. That’s how I got my first non-pandan green ‘ang ku kueh’.

I learned that the hard way. However, I believe you can get non-pandan green ‘ang ku kueh’ by mixing the yellow sweet potatoes and purple sweet potatoes together. It’s a lot easier.

This recipe was referenced from a few sources:
My Asian Kitchen & Amy Beh’s Ang Koo Kueh
Tried out and photographed by: SC,

Related Posts:

- Red Bean Paste(红豆馅)