Growing Up in Nonya kitchen

My sister Nancy loves this one. Yet, I rarely saw my mother make this. Now, I understand
the reason why and remember exactly when she even ever made it. Kueh ko chee was
served up for ancestral worship. My older sisters got to eat a lot more of this kueh while
growing up, when my mother prepared offerings for the ancestral table. She did away with
all that when she became a Christian. Back then, she took her duties seriously. She once
caught me eating something off the table and it left her aghast that I had stolen a share
from our ancestors. She made me apologise at the altar for being such a greedy girl.

The recipe below, however, is completely different from what we know as kueh ko
chee with the white and blue pastry on the outside and the gula melaka-drenched grated
coconut filling inside. When we tested it, we were left befuddled by the fact that we had
never seen such a Nonya kueh and were puzzled by the existence of such a recipe clearly
titled ‘Kueh Ko Chee’. The recipe bears testament to the fact that among the hundreds of
recipes which my mother left behind, there are simply those that I will never be able to ask
her if they were wrongly labelled or hard-to-explain strange concoctions.

To obtain the conventional kueh ko chee, you could substitute the mung bean filling
with the coconut filling from ondeh ondeh (page 279), and leave out the black glutinous
rice for the pastry dough. You also have the option of adding some blue colouring from
bunga telang (blue peaflower) to the dough.

1. Wash and soak the black glutinous rice for 3 hours,
preferably overnight. Drain the black glutinous rice and
have it ground wet. Leave on a large tray lined with a cloth
to dry.

2. Prepare a saucepan of boiling water. Cut the banana
leaves into semi-circles about 18 cm or 7 inches in diameter.
Dip each leaf into the saucepan of boiling water. Brush the
oil on one side of each leaf.

3. Rinse the mung beans. Add the beans and water to a
saucepan and bring to a boil. Lower heat and continue to
simmer until the beans soften. Then pour in the sugar and
stir continuously, mashing gently until the sugar dissolves
and you form a smooth bean paste. This will take about
2 hours. Remove from heat and cool the bean paste.
Then shape into round balls about 3.5 cm or ½ inches
in diameter.