SAGO DESSERT WITH RED BEANS AND COCOA RECIPE. NUSANTARA SAGO DESSERT RECIPE

SAGO DESSERT WITH RED BEANS AND  COCOA  RECIPE

SAGO PEARLS WITH RED BEANS AND COCOA

Ingredients: from cooking-varieties exclusive recipe

2 cups sago pearls

2 teaspoon cocoa powder

1 cup red beans – soak overnight and boil

4  tablespoon sugar

Banana leaves (about 20 pieces, cut into 11 cm width)

 Wash the red beans and soak overnight in the fridge, to soften them a bit. Next, boil until cooked and the beans cracked up. Drain away water and coarse blend. Set aside.

When boiling, you may add about 1 cm ginger into the water to get rid of wind/ gas from beans. Once boiling is done, remove the ginger. 

Over here, you can buy banana leaves from the wet market. Banana leaves need to be softened or slightly wilted, so that it won’t tear off, when folded.  To do this, you can heat the leaf over your stove fire for a few seconds. Or you can put it under the hot sun for 30-40 minutes.

You may substitute this with some other large non-poisonous leaves. The leaf texture should not be too soft.  Wrapping them with leaves, makes the sago cooked with excellent results. If it is  too soft and soggy, it means the dessert is already ruined. This happens especially when sago is boiled directly in water. This is the intricate part of cooking sago, although the recipe is very simple to follow.

When that is done, cut the banana leaves into pieces, about 11 cm wide and set aside. Leave the length as it is.

 Wash sago pearls and drain away water. Do not use strainer. The sago is wet enough to enable it to soften- with plenty of moisture but not soggy.

Using a mixing bowl, add in about 6 tablespoons hot water, sugar and cocoa. Stir until  dissolved. Add in sago pearls and red beans. Mix well and ensure that all ingredients are properly mixed.  Set aside and cover  bowl  for 15-20 minutes  to allow the ingredients to blend well and  to let the sago soften a bit.

Boil water in a Steamer pot.

While waiting for water to boil, start wrapping up the sago using banana leaves.

Shape banana leaf into a cone, fill it up with sago and press down the sago using a spoon (not too compressed). Fold the top to close the cone. Place and arrange this cone directly onto the Steamer pan. Repeat this, until all sago has been wrapped up. Put pan on Steamer pot. Cover with lid and let it cook for about 15- 20 minutes- depending on your steamer size/layers of cones stacked, as in the case of a small-size steamer.

You can open up one cone and check- if sago has turned translucent color, then it is already cooked. Remove from Steamer and leave to cool. When serving, do not remove the leaves because it enhances the authenticity of the dessert.