a very good winter-time treat: serabi

recipes and conversations about Indonesia, letter #6

~ Oh hello ~ from my new home surrounded by actual trees and a sliver of a view of the San Francisco skyline. We purchased a long wooden dining table (with leaves! the potential!) as a good luck charm to manifest many decadent dinner parties in the new year. But for now, we’re hunkered down, cooking little candlelit meals for two –– larb with Mama Esti’s sambal terasi, Indo-Mie instant noodle soup, and a quick and delicious treat that you too can now make, serabi.

Serabi are little Javanese hotcake-like treats that are usually hawked fresh from a hot earthenware pan for an early morning breakfast, served slightly blackened by the half dozen and consumed with coffee or tea. With a springy texture gifted from the rice flour, and coconut milk and desiccated coconut adding richness, it’s both simple and slightly indulgent delight.

Many believe serabi to originate from Java, but today it’s ubiquitous to Southeast Asia (Thailand has a very similar version called khanom khrok, and Vietnam has its savory bánh khọt, to name a couple.) In Indonesia, common toppings are chocolate and cheese, or a traditional fermented soy product similar to tempe, called oncom.

Bibi Suyem showing me how to make savory serabi over a wood fire. She greases her pan using a coconut husk. 2018.

If you can’t get your hands on an earthenware pan and/or cook over an open fire, you can usually purchase cute Thai cast-iron khanom khrok pans such as these at your local Southeast Asian market to cook stovetop. I still find the ritual of serabi street sellers dancing around their sets of traditional cookware totally mesmerizing (see for yourself) –– the quickness of the batter pouring, the deft cake flipping, the lids softing tapping all is a little dizzying. While I don’t look nearly as elegant scraping at my pan with an offset spatula, I still thoroughly enjoy the process of making these treats. It’s with dishes likes these that imperfections (i.e. batter spillage) make it even better (i.e. crispier.) Can that be our mantra for the new year?

In Indonesia, the cities of Solo and Bandung are particularly popular for their distinct serabi styles — the former thinner and crispier, the latter thicker and more cake-like. I suppose my version leans towards that of Solo with its shallower, pudding-like center and a thin, golden, crackly ‘collar’. Once again, I draw on Indonesia’s holy flavor trifecta –– rice, coconut, and pandan –– to make this blissful dish.

Don’t worry about them looking precise — a little batter overflow leads to a delicious and crispy collar.

While I’m delivering you a sweet version today, the beauty of the dish is that it can be taken in several directions. You could lean savory by omitting the pandan (keep a tablespoon of sugar and up the salt a bit) and adding to the batter, say, sliced green onion and a dash of fish sauce, or leftover minced cooked meat, or crumbled up fried tempe, and finish it off with a spoonful of sambal and a drizzle of sweet soy sauce. Eat them deeply golden with lettuce cups and pickled onion?! Or you could leave ‘em sweet and top them with fresh passion fruit, or shavings of chocolate, or sweetened condensed milk. I could go on like this for quite a while :)

Anyway, the point is, serabi is fun to make, and to look at, and definitely entertaining to eat and share with friends. So let me know if you give it a go?

Selamat tahun baru — happy new year! May 2022 be easier on our tender hearts.

xox

Recipe: Serabi Manis (Sweet Rice Griddle Cakes)

Makes 15-20 small cakes

INGREDIENTS

- 100g rice flour (*not* glutinous rice flour)

- 100g desiccated coconut (50g for the batter + 50g for topping)

- 100g full fat coconut milk

- large handful of rough-chopped fresh or frozen pandan leaves

- 3/4 cup filtered water

- 3 tbsp cane sugar

- 1/4 tsp baking powder

- 1 tsp salt

- sunflower oil or coconut oil for the pan

- optional, dash of vanilla extract and/or pandan extract.

- also optional, toasted black sesame seeds for garnish

For the kinca syrup

- 100g coconut sugar

- 100g filtered water

- pinch of salt

Other items you’ll need/want:

- blender

- cheese cloth or fine mesh strainer

- khanom khrok pan

NOTES:

- If you don’t have a khanom krok pan, you can use a cast iron pan, although the shape will be a different.

DIRECTIONS:

1. Toast your desiccated coconut on a pan over low heat, stirring constantly, until lightly golden, about 5 minutes. Set aside.

2. Blend the pandan leaves and water on high until smooth. Strain into a liquid measuring cup through a cheese cloth or fine strainer. You’ll need at least 100g (about 1/2 cup) of this pandan juice but you’ll likely have extra.

3. Make your batter. Preferably in a large glass measuring cup with a lip (or just a mixing bowl is fine), whisk together the rice flour, 50g of toasted coconut, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

4. Pour in the coconut milk, 100g pandan juice, your optional vanilla/pandan extract, and whisk vigorously to combine. You want the batter the consistency of pancake batter, so if it feels a little thick you can add a splash more pandan water.

5. Let the batter rest for 10 minutes. In the meantime, combine your kinca syrup ingredients in a small heavy-bottomed saucepan. Bring to a light boil, then lower to a simmer and stir constantly until the syrup thickens to the consistency of molasses, about 5 minutes. Set aside.

6. Heat your khanom khrok griddle (or cast iron) on medium-high for about 1 minute, then lightly grease with a neutral oil.

7. Ok, this is where you’re racing against the heat of the pan. You want to move quick so that each cake cooks at a similar rate. If your batter is in a large measuring cup (or a vessel with a lip!) - great! Using a heat mitt (!!), hold the pan away from the heat with one hand, and with the other hand quickly pour in the batter a little more than halfway up each hole. Once every hole is filled, tilt the pan in a circle so that the batter lightly coats up the sides of the hole. It’s fine if there’s a little spillage — uneven coating means extra crunchy bits!

Note: If you’re your batter is in a bowl and not a large measuring cup, just spoon it into the pan with a ladle. If you’re using a cast-iron, spoon in the batter and still do the circular pan movement to get your crispy collar.

8. Return the pan to medium-high heat, sprinkle with sesame seeds, and cook until the edges just barely start to golden, 1-2 minutes. Then turn the heat to low, cover the pan, and and don’t peek for about 4-5 minutes.

9. When the center of the serabi is barely firm to the touch, you can carefully remove them with an offset spatula or butter knife. Repeat until your batter is used up.

10. Enjoy hot, garnished with extra toasted coconut and drizzled with kinca syrup.

Selamat makan! Happy eating!

If you make the recipe, tag @threesaltedfish so I can see!