Moving On: library@orchard in transit

We have “One Learning Hour” sessions in the library, which is one hour specially set aside for sharing sessions amongst staff. It doesn’t have to be on work-related matters. For example, we’ve had staff sharing with the rest recipes for shakes and mocktails. In this month, we had 2 “One Learning Hour” sessions at library@orchard, and we learned how to make Ondeh Ondeh and Mee Siam. Took lots of photos for the blog too.

I was especially excited about learning how to make Ondeh Ondeh. I love this kuih (local desert). You know, the one which is shaped like a small green ball, with grated coconut covering it? When you bite into it, a flavourful burst of gula melaka (palm suger) spurts into your mouth. Yummmm…

Jillian was just telling me about how she used to trick talk her foreign friends into taking a bite of Ondeh Ondeh and watching how the gula melaka would spurt out onto their faces.

Ashiah, our Supreme Instructor, did an inspired bit of self-promotion that ensured her “One Learning Hour” would be well-attended by staff. A day before the session, she brought to work some Ondeh Ondeh that she had prepared at home. The entire box was snapped up by greedy hungry colleagues in minutes (ok, I did my part too)! Now I everybody wanted to attend the session, to eat the end results learn how to make such wonderful and delicious kuih.

It is suprisingly easy to make Ondeh Ondeh and we all tried it out. We just made the dough (using glutinous rice flour and pandan juice), rolled them into small balls, pushed a small block of gula melaka into the centre before rolling up the dough to completely cover the suger. Drop it into boiling water, and it’s done a minute later when it floats up! Roll it in grated coconut and… ta da!

Unfortunately, our results were… not as good as we hoped. Patricia’s balls of dough were too big, I put too little suger in mine, and we all forgot to take out the Ondeh Ondeh from the boiling water so it became too soggy. I’m not going to post the entire recipe here (sorry!), but it is super-duper easy to make. Try it at home sometime.

The first Ondeh Ondeh to come out of the oven (or rice cooker in our case)! There isn’t a photo of a full plate because we were to busy eating to remember to take photos!

The rice cooker! We didn’t have a pot and stove so Ashiah brought a rice cooker to boil the water and cook the Ondeh Ondeh.  

Buang and Pat looking down on the fruit of our labours.

 Ashiah, Supreme Instructor

Take a look at us rolling up our sleeves and making some kuih. Jasna is really concentrating on the task at hand while I just look like I’m making a mess.

Tempted to do a little magic in your kitchen? Check out these books from the library:

• Delicious Local Cakes and Kuih by Martina Guram (Call No.: English 641.8653 MAR - [COO])
• Tempting Local Desserts by Nor Aini Adnan (Call No.: English 641.86 NOR - [COO])

Don’t want to go to the trouble of making your own? Check out this Stomp! article on where to find the best Ondeh Ondeh in town.  

One Learning Hour - Mee Siam, akan datang (coming soon)!
Check back in a few days to learn how Buang, our resident men’s man, demostrates how to cook Mee Siam, right here in the office! It was simply sedap, especially the accompanying Sambal Tumis!

- posted by Lynn

This entry was posted on Friday, September 7th, 2007 at 8:13 pm and is filed under Librarian Says. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.