Cass brought some agar-agar (jelly) back from school on Children's Day last Friday. I think one of her classmates' mum made the agar-agar. It was plain with pink colouring. nothing fancy but the girls had a tug of war over the miserable piece of agar-agar! To quell the tug of war, I promised them that I would get them ingredients to make agar-agar the next day (Saturday) and they would have to help in the prep.
They couldn't wait for Saturday to come! They love their masak-masak sessions in the kitchen.
I bought the traditional agar-agar strips (only costs RM3+ a packet), a can of evaporated milk, fresh coconut water, a box of grape juice with aloe vera bits and passion fruits to make two types of agar-agar.
The passion fruit jelly was prepped using only 3 ingredients:
1) 1 packet of agar-agar
2) 2 passion fuits
3) 1 box of Marigold grape juice with chewy aloe vera bits
We used the passion fruit shells as cups for the jelly and the rest of the mixture was poured onto a cake tin.
Directions for passion fruit jelly:
1) Heat up the box of grape juice in a pot. You can use whatever juice you fancy. Best to use freshly pressed/squeezed juice if you have the time. (you will see directions on the amount of liquid to use from the packet of the agar-agar). Use more water if you prefer the jelly to be jiggly and soft.
2) Once the juice boils, cut the agar-agar strips into smaller strips directly into the pot of juice.
3) Stir until all agar-agar has dissolved.
4) Pour mixture onto pan. You can use the shell of orange or passion fruit as 'cup'.
5) Scoop out the passion fruit seeds from the shell and mix them into the jelly mixture.
6) Set aside to cool down. Put it under the fan to cool faster as you would be dang impatient for the jelly to coagulate to taste it. We even tried the jelly when it was still slightly warm but firmed up - too impatient to wait for hours for it to cool in the fridge :D
7) Chill the jelly in the fridge once the mixture has cooled. We put it in the freezer for 20 minutes to speed things up, hahaha!!
The coconut pudding / jelly was also prepped using only 3 ingredients:
1) Fresh coconut water (1200ml)
2) 1 can of evaporated milk (200ml)
3 1 packet of agar-agar strips
Directions for coconut pudding / jelly:
1) Heat up the coconut water in a pot, cut the agar-agar strips into smaller strips and dissolve them in the coconut water. Stir frequently. If you have the time, make sure you burst any bubble formed on the mixture. Ours had bubbles on the mixture surface as I was in a rush to finish off the jelly as Cass had piano lesson to attend.
2) Once all the agar-agar strips have dissolved, add in the can of evaporated milk.
Note: the agar-agar was a tad firm and very milky. It would taste better if I use 1300ml of fresh coconut water and only 100ml of evaporated milk in future. As the texture is firm and milky, it tasted pretty much like a pudding. The girls didn't quite like it but I was in love with it -- it contains both my favorite ingredients, so how could I not heart it? :D
3) Cut up strips of coconut flesh (optional but highly recommended) and add into the jelly mixture.
4) Pour mixture onto pan or jelly molds.
5) Set aside to cool down. Put it under the fan to cool faster as you would be dang impatient for the jelly to coagulate to taste it.
6) Chill the jelly in the fridge once the mixture has cooled.
To suit the girls' taste bud, I may even omit the evaporated milk in future. Instead I will get the coconut seller to give me some coconut meat/flesh, which I will cut into strips and add into the jelly. This would taste exactly like the coconut jelly dessert from Han Room, which is our all-time favorite dessert. This will be the girls' next masak-masak project in the kitchen soon - coconut jelly ala Han Room.
Passion fruit jelly in passion fruit cup - so refreshing and yummy!
Jagged and uneven cut agar-agar, evidence of child's play in the kitchen. Nonetheless we enjoyed the fruits of our labor, in which case wasn't really laborious and even kids can prep with adult's supervision :)
