Krop Knao aka Med Kanoon - Dec. 24, 2009

I found this while cleaning out my external hard drive. I totally forgot that we didn't blog about this, even though we blogged about the hot pot dinner. So continuing with the random tidbits, here's the third one.

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Krop Knao is a Thai dessert, made of mung beans, sugar, coconut milk and egg yolk. In Thai, the dessert is called med kanoon, whereas the Cambodians call it krop knao. It doesn't look the best. Okay, so they look like yellow turds - sweet and sticky yellow turds. Mmm.. very appetizing. Hahaa!

This is another dish my mom makes without a recipe. When she cooks and bakes, she doesn’t necessarily know the exact ingredients and measurements, but she does know how it’s supposed to look and feel before/when she cooks and bakes.

The recipe is taken from Thai Sweet Taste, since my mom doesn’t know how much she put. I asked my mom to look at the recipe on the blog and confirm the measurements. “I don’t know. Depends on how much you want to make,” she answered. I added two additional ingredients to the recipe and changed the steps up a bit because that’s the way my mom did it.

For the mung bean:

450g Yellow Mung Beans

200g Sugar

400g Coconut Milk           

½ Teaspoon Salt

2 Drops of Rose Extract/Water

5 Egg Yolks

For the syrup:

3 cups Sugar

2 cups Water

To prepare the mung beans, soak it in water for 2 hours. Then steam the mung beans until cooked. While the mung beans steam, boil some of the coconut milk with the sugar until it becomes as sticky and thick as liquid honey. Cool the coconut syrup for a few minutes.

Once the mung beans are cooked, mash (or blend it in a blender) and then mix them with the coconut syrup, the remaining coconut milk, salt, and rose extract. If you like the mung beans smoother, mash it more. You can add more or less drops of rose extract, depending on how fragrant you like it. Same thing applies to sugar. If you like it a bit sweeter, or less, just adjust the amount – but remember, this is a dessert. 

Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and scramble it. Set the scrambled yolks aside.

Prepare the syrup by simmering the sugar and water in a deep pot on medium-high heat until its consistency is a bit thicker than syrup. My mom says that she tests the syrup by adding a drop of yolk. If the drop of yolk spreads out and doesn’t cook quick enough, then the syrup is not thick and/or hot enough.

You’re ready to start dipping and cooking the mung bean pellets when the drop of yolk holds it’s shape and cooks.

While the syrup gently simmers to the right consistency, you can form the mung beans into small pellets. Then when the syrup is ready, take the mung bean pellets, dip it in the egg yolk and then drop them into the simmering syrup. They should float up pretty quickly. Once the yolk-dipped mung bean pellets start floating, give it an extra 30 seconds before taking them out. You can serve them right away or throw them in the fridge to enjoy later.

Sometimes my mom takes some syrup and mixes it with a few drops of rose extract/water, then pours some of the rose scented syrup onto the cooked pellets.