This ball-shaped dessert has a sweet coconut filling (gracheek), surrounded by a thin crust of pounded unripe rice crumbs, along with a tempting fragrance enriched with a Thai dessert candle or fresh flowers.
Demonstrating brilliant creativity and attention to detail, this classical Thai dessert uses only three basic ingredients. In this article, we have elected to follow the traditional recipe published in 1908 by Thanpuying Plean Passakornrawong.
The Filling – Gracheek (กระฉีก)
Gracheek is a golden-colored paste produced by cooking together semi-matured grated coconut and palm sugar over low heat, until it is soft and malleable – not too chewy and not too thin. The coconut should be thinly grated, using a Chinese-style or a handheld coconut grater. If granulated white sugar is used in the recipe, it is best to use flower-scented water to prepare the syrup, as the resulting gracheek will be lighter, as well as perfumed.
The Crust – Pounded Khao Mao Raang (ข้าวเม่าราง)
Creating the rice crumb coating begins by preparing khao mao raang – roasting the unripe rice grains until they pop and become crispy.
After grinding and sieving, the fine crumbs should retain the bready aroma and the pleasant green color of the fresh unripe rice. Its scent is further deepened by smoking it with an aromatic Thai dessert candle.
Sweet Pounded Unripe Rice Flakes Cereal – Rice harvesting takes place only once a year, and there are only two weeks where the ripening grains are suitable for producing Khao Mao.
Khao Mao doesn’t age well, it gets dry and tough quickly. The-once-vivid beautiful green color that portrayed the essence of its immaturity and the beginning of the rice harvesting season, slowly fades away, along with its bread like scent.
One of the charms of street food is that it finds you rather than you finding it. Therefore you are usually in the perfect mood to embrace it.
This treat along with other sweets are traditionally presented on tricycle drawn trays that are protected from insects and pollution by a transparent nylon tent and light up by a single light bulb.
Thai desserts are usually made from common ingredients and therefore very popular. However, it was only during the 17th century that desserts and sweets actually became part of everyday meals. In the old days, they were served only at auspicious occasions and ceremonies.
During wedding ceremonies, for example, four kinds of sweets are usually served, collectively known as “the four plates dessert” (ขนมสี่ถ้วย ; khanohm see thuay). The ancient Thai expression “To eat four cups of dessert” (กินสี่ถ้วย ; gin see thuay ) used in the central region of the kingdom as an idiom referring to a wedding banquet.
It is believed that this dish was introduced to the Siamese royal cuisine in the middle of the seventeenth century by Portuguese traders. Later, along with other egg yolk-based golden sweets like the golden drops (thong yot ทองหยอด), golden flowers (thong yip ทองหยิบ) and golden threads (foi thong ฝอยทอง), these royal desserts were passed to commoners outside the court.
For the marzipan filling I am using, beside the mung beans, both the flesh and the water of fragrant young coconuts. It gives a rich, sweet and almost nutty flavor which works perfectly with the silky texture of the mung beans and the creamy golden egg yolks coating.
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