A new kind of Ice Kacang?

Picture taken from http://food.yowazzup.com/penang-food-gurney-drive-the-gardens-mid-valley.html

Looks familiar? To any Singaporean living in Singapore, yes it should be. It is Ice Kacang, literally translated, Ice Bean, one of the more popular traditional asian dessets.

The concept of shaved ice desserts began way back in the 1990's with the invention of a machine by Samuel Bert in a fair at Texas.

This concept began with snow cones and snow balls which were made with shaved ice and flavoured syrups then further developed to have fruits.

When it reached Singapore and Malaysia, shaved ice took on a new identity together with red bean, grass jelly and palm fruit and called itself Ice Kacang. Once popular in western culture, shaved ice is now also an integral part of Asian dessert.

While thinking of what to do for my post on desserts this week, I thought that the simplest and most direct way to do it would be to relook at shaved ice from a different perspective. This idea is much simpler than I originally intended it to be.

Granita is a kind of shaved ice dessert. However, this ice is flavoured before it is frozen instead of the traditional dessert style.

I decided to use this as the new shaved ice for my own Ice Kacang creation.

What about the ingredients at the bottom? I had no idea. I decided to take a walk around NTUC and see what I could find.

Longans hit me first. They would replace the palm fruit (atap chee)

Jelly hit me next. They will replace the grass jelly.

Red bean came to my mind next. I spotted a can of sweet boiled japanese red bean (azuki).

Japanese red bean? It became apparent to me that the granita should have a green tea flavour profile and my dessert was created.

The dessert base

The cup had to be chilled to prevent the raspberry flavoured jelly inside to instantly melt. I stuffed the longans with the red bean (you remember rambutans stuffed with pineapple?) to make less mess in the base of the cup. The combination of taste was fine though I had to admit there was nothing spectacular about it.

Finished product

Regrettably, I could not get my hands on any mint leaves or I would have shredded them into the dessert and used one for garnish. I used a curry leaf here in this picture to show the effect on presentation a leaf would have as a garnish. Looks very much fresher.

I've tasted it. Honestly, I didn't know what to expect. That is the scariest part of an experiment: when you put it to the test.

My comment? Its not half bad. I would not take offense at being served this in a restaurant. But to enter this for dessert making competition? No way. Its not nearly good enough.

Granita recipe:

420 ml hot water
2 green tea bags
50 g sugar

1) Stir the sugar into the water to dissolve it and let the green tea bags seep for about 20 minutes.

(You could also use commericial Pokka green tea. I haven't tried it myself but hey, what's the difference besides you being able to adjust the tea quality and sweetness level?)

2) Place the pan into the freezer and stir it with a whisk or fork every 15 minutes to half an hour until crushed ice forms like the picture above.

Simple and delicious. Try this with other liquid ingredients like orange juice, fruit punch or ribena. What about soft drink? Let your imagination run. However, results vary so don't look for me if it doesn't work =)