Nyonya Delicacy: 'Kuih Ku'

My mum made kuih ku this morning. This is definitely one of my favourites beside kuih koci. My mum made the filling and natural colouring earlier on. The filling is mostly green beans. As for the shiny black colour of the delicacy, the colour first comes from a plant. The only thing this plant bears is leaves. When the leaves are old enough, it will be plucked, cleaned, and dried. It is easily crushed when it's totally dried up (still maintaining it's dark green colour) which is made into small rounded balls. Then these mashed leaves will need to be cooked. The cooked mashed leaves will then combined with 'tepung pulut'. There is a mould to shape the delicacy.

Here are some images I managed to take.

Yet to be steamed. As you can see, it's not black yet. It is the colour of the leaves. Moulded kuih ku will be put on cut banana leaves.

These are how it looked like after 12-15 minutes of steaming. Ready to eat. Nyum nyum!

Some home-makers will use the artificial red colour for sale. Even the black colour comes in powder form.

Cheers.