Ongol Ongol – Indonesian Mochi

by Pauline Chavannes de Senerpont Domis · Published July 8, 2018 · Updated May 13, 2020

Ongol-ongol

Ongol ongol is a kind of mochi; a super tender and sweet snack. There are many different recipes for this snack. I make mine with tapioca and ketan flour.

Dutch Moeson Magazine

For a Dutch Indo magazine: Moesson, I make a reader’s favorite recipe.

I look for a convenient and manageable way to make the recipe at home and try to get as close as possible to the original (authentic) flavors. Earlier I’ve made in this series:

This is my version of ongol ongol. But I am definitely going to make different versions too with hun kwee and rice flour.

Ingredients

100 grams of tapioca flour
25 grams of ketan flour
100 grams gula Jawa
325 ml of water
3 tablespoons of coconut milk
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 pandan leaf

Melt the gula Jawa with some water together with the pandan leaf
Mix the two types of flour and add 3 tablespoons of coconut milk, the salt and the rest of the water.
Pour the melted sugar water into the batter
Pour this mixture back into the pan and heat slowly
Stir constantly until it has become a thick paste
Scoop in a plastic tray covered with baking paper
Steam for 30 minutes
Allow to cool
Cut into cubes and roll through the coconut

Tapioca flour is cassava flour and is made from a large brown carrot shape vegetable.

Ketan flour is also known as sticky rice flour and. This recipe makes a super tender and sticky snack. Delicious.

Tapioca cassave

I start by making the batter and melting the gula Jawa.

Gula Jawa is Javanese sugar (palm sugar) and I melt it with a bit of water on low heat. Is use some of the total amount of 325 ml. It does not matter to be precise. I add a pandan leaf too. Because of the heat of the sugar water, it gives a lot of flavor.

For the batter, I mix the two types of flour and add 3 tablespoons of coconut milk, the salt, and the rest of the water.

The batter is thin and mixes easily with the tapioca and ketan rice flour.

The sugar has now completely melted and I pour that into the batter. I do not pour it directly but let the sugar water cool down slightly by turning off the gas, moving the pan from the heated pit and let it cool for 5 minutes.

It looks like coffee or thin caramel now. The batter is super thin and smells delicious already. I leave the pandan leaf for a while.

Then I pour everything back into the pan in which I had melted the sugar and warm it up on low heat.

Now there something weird happens. Under constant stirring, transparent lumps form on the bottom. This is good. I stir it until the batter turns into a thick paste.

First the mixture becomes gradually thicker. Then all of a sudden it is super sticky and it is difficult to mix. That is exactly want you want. Now stop heating it but immediately scoop it into a plastic container lined with parchment paper.

It is not easy to get the pasta out of the pan. It is super sticky but while it cooles it becomes more easy to mold and take out of the pan.

Steam for 30 minutes

I add my plastic container into the sieve part of my rice cooker and heat up the water underneath. I steam my ongol-ongol for 30 minutes.

After the steaming the color has changed; it has become darker and it smells wonderful.

Cooling down

Cooling now is purely for practical reasons. You can also pull off a pieve of ongol-ongol and drop it into grated coconut, but that is a sticky and messy job.

I’ve done it in two ways now. I let my ongol ongol cool on the kitchen counter for a hour and I cut pieces of and roll them through the coconut.

Or I place my cooled down ongol ongol for one night in the fridge and I cut it in the morning and dip it in the coconut. When the ongol ongol is cooled down it is so much easier to handle. It also forms nice square blocks.