Pandan Sugar Dumplings (Kanom Ko)
An incredibly delicious, rare dessert from Southern Thailand. Chewy, mochi-like dumplings filled with crunchy palm sugar and tossed in coconut.
Ingredients
- 1 cup chopped pandan leaves
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup GLUTINOUS rice flour, NOT regular rice flour
- ¾ cup dried shredded coconut, unsweetened
- ¼ cup hot water
- ¼ teaspoon table salt
- 7 oz palm sugar pucks, you won’t use nearly this much, but you need to start out with more to get enough nice cubes from it
Instructions
- Make pandan juice by blending the pandan leaves with water just until there are no more large pieces - do not overblend or it'll be bitter. Then strain the liquid through a fine mesh strainer, discarding the fibers. You will need only about half of the pandan juice, but it’s hard to effectively blend an amount less than this, so you can freeze the rest for next time.1 cup chopped pandan leaves, 1 cup water
- To make the dough, place the glutinous rice flour into a mixing bowl. Gradually add the pandan juice little by little, mixing with your hand after each addition, until you have a smooth and soft dough that doesn’t stick to your hands and no dry flour is left - you should need about half of the juice. Once all the dry flour is gone, knead in a bit more pandan juice ½ - 1 teaspoon at a time to increase the moisture content for maximally soft dumplings. The goal is to have the softest possible dough that can still hold its shape. If you’ve accidentally made it too wet, simply knead in more glutinous rice flour to bring it back.Allow the dough to rest for 30 minutes, covered or wrapped so it doesn’t dry out. Meanwhile, prep the coconut and palm sugar.1 cup GLUTINOUS rice flour
- For the coconut: Dissolve the salt in the hot water. Place the shredded coconut in a small bowl, then drizzle the salt water over and mix well until all the water has been absorbed. Spread the coconut onto a pie plate or a plate with a bit of depth; you’ll be placing the cooked dumplings on here.¼ cup hot water, ¼ teaspoon table salt, ¾ cup dried shredded coconut
- Cut the palm sugar (best to see video tutorial for this part): Use a sturdy chef’s knife to chop the palm sugar first into big chunks, then take the chunks and cut them down into roughly ¼-inch cube-ish pieces. Much of the palm sugar will flake off into small bits that you can’t use; this is fine, just save them for your cooking. You need to end up with about 50 pieces of palm sugar cubes for this recipe. Tip: While the sugar pieces don’t need to be perfect cubes, you want to trim off any long, sharp points that stick out as this can poke through the dough.7 oz palm sugar pucks
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil while you wrap the dumplings.
- To wrap the dumplings (also best to see the video for this part), pinch off about ¾ teaspoon worth of dough (4 g) and press it down to flatten with your fingers so it’s between ⅛ - ¼ inch thick. Place one palm sugar cube inside and bring the dough up to wrap the sugar. Once the sugar is completely sealed, roll the dumpling between your palms briefly to make little balls. Make sure the palm sugar isn’t poking out through the dough. Place finished dumplings on a plate.
- Once the water is boiling, add about half of the dumplings, one at a time, into the boiling water (adding 1 at a time ensures they don’t stick together). Let the dumplings cook until they float to the surface; about 2 minutes. Once they float, use a wire skimmer to fish them out, shake off the excess water and place them directly onto the coconut. Roll the dumplings around in the coconut and/or toss with a spoon to coat them, then take them out onto a serving plate. Repeat with the remaining dumplings.
- Ideally you want to serve these while warm, or at least within 2 hours of making them. If you let them sit for a long time the palm sugar inside will dissolve into liquid, and you won't have that crunchiness that I think is the highlight of this treat. Do not refrigerate. See more in the Tips section in the blog post.
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