Wajik (Rice Dessert)

Today's post is a special post from a dear friend Kohilavani, who belongs to Malaysia..a friend through Facebook. She loves to cook & keeps on sharing great recipes. She also has tried many of my recipes like Almond cake, Scrambled eggs, Liver, Peas rice, Chicken Zinger, Gulab Jamun, Chickpeas rice, Mince Rice, etc etc :)

Wajik is a delicious sweet rice dish made using glutinous rice & dark brown palm sugar (brown sugar). It can be eaten as a tea time snack or normally made for Malaysian functions like weddings, engagements & Eid Mubarak.


You can adjust the color of your wajik depending on the palm sugar u use, Normally, we use the darker brown sugar to make wajik.. It's more delish too.

Lets see how the recipe goes:


Ingredients:

Glutinous Rice                                    1 cup
Dark Brown Sugar                              1 cup
Coconut Milk                                      2 cups
Salt                                                      2 pinches
Water                                                   1/2 cup
Screw pine leaves                                3 - 4


Procedure:

Soak 1 cup of glutinous rice (Beras pulut, Sticky rice) in water overnight.

Next morning, wash rice & sieve off water. Next put them in steamer, sprinkle some coconut milk, water & salt. And steam rice till cooked. Instead, you can also cook rice in cooker which I do (as it is easier). For cooking in cooker, there is no need to soak the rice overnight. Just add some salt and water (just above the layer of rice) in cooker and pressure for 5-10 minutes until cooked.

After the rice has cooked, set them aside & prepare the brown sugar syrup.

Boil 1 cup dark brown sugar (shown below) in half cup water till diluted.

If the sugar has impurities then, you can sieve it after it has been diluted. After sieving, wash the wok & dry it. Pour back the diluted brown sugar into the wok. Switch on fire & keep stirring. Next add 2 cups of coconut milk & 3 screw pine leaves (knotted). Screw-pine leaves also called pandan leaves has been shown below:

These leaves impart a delicious flavor & aroma to the syrup. Add little salt too. Boil for at least half an hour, stirring continuously till it thickens. The consistency should be that if u were to drop a dollop in a bowl of water, it shouldn't spread and should remain a nice round drop!!

When it has reached this consistency remove the leaves & add in cooked rice. Keep stirring continuously until it becomes a ball. It will take roughly 20 mins. You can check it with a dry mango leaf.. it shouldn't stick to it. At this juncture, switch off flame & scoop rice into a tray & flatten with back of spoon. (There is no need to grease the tray).

When it cools down, cut it into square/diamond shapes.

It will be good at room temperature for a day. Otherwise, you can refrigerate it & reheat it next day :)

Note: You can skip screw pine leaves if not available.

Thanks Kohilavani for introducing us such a beautiful & new Malay dish, I hope my readers will enjoy making it =)

Thanku for stopping by! Hope u enjoy this recipe :)