Simple Food with Love: Serabi Saus Kinca

One of my favorites things to do in Indonesia and Singapore, or if I can say in most of Asian countries I have visited or lived, is getting delicious snacks almost all day long. I love going to the traditional market, looking for local snacks. In Indonesia, we call them: jajan pasar. Jajan means snacks, while pasar means market.

There are different types and styles of jajan pasar. For the same jajan, there could be different styles to prepare it. Why? There are several reasons. One of the reasons is adaptation of the taste to the preference of certain region. Sometimes, it can also be difficult to trace the real origin and history of the jajan.

One of the jajan pasar I like is serabi. In other place, it is also called surabi. The main theme of this jajan is the combination of coconut milk and palm sugar/javanese sugar.

There are a few variants of the palm sugar. I prefer gula jawa/javanese sugar. It is usually darker, and the taste is a bit different than other variants. I have difficulty to describe the taste in words.

Serabi consists of a pancake like snack and the sauce. Both the pancake and sauce are made with coconut milk. The difficult part of making the pancake is to make the holes of the pancake appear. It is actually similar with the trick to make martabak manis, another Indonesian favorite street snack. What I have done to make the holes appear on the pancake is: by beating the batter a few times using the ladle before pouring the batter to the pan. After a few serabis, sometimes we need to add a bit extra baking powder to initiate again the making of the holes on the serabi. It surely needs practice. I still make mistakes that prevent the holes to appear on the serabi.

Nevertheless, we did enjoy eating this during the lockdown time (Covid-19 related lockdown) in our region.

For the kids, since they are not as a big fan of coconut milk and gula jawa (palm sugar) as I am, I modified the serabi. Instead of eating it with the coconut milk/gula jawa sauce, I put different toppings, such as: slice of ham or slice cheese or chocolate, on top of the serabi while cooking the serabi.

Ingredients:
For the Serabi
150 gram all purpose flour
50 gram rice flour
25 gram sugar
1 tsp salt
3.5 gram instant yeast
1 tsp baking powder
250-300 ml coconut milk

For the sauce/kuah Kinca
250 ml santan (coconut milk)
1/2 tsp salt
70 gram palm sugar
2 pandan leaves (you can skip it if you don't have)

Alternative topping: cheese, ham, chocolate sprinkle.

How to make:

Mixed all the serabi's ingredients in a bowl until everything the mixture is smooth,
Set aside the serabi's mixture and let it rest for a minimum of 30 minutes,
Warm a non-stick pan (I used a small teflon pan) without oil/butter,
Beat the batter with ladle and pour around 1 ladle of batter into the pan,
Wait until holes appear on the serabi, then colse the pan using the lid of the pan.
There are two variants:

If you eat them with the coconut sauce: check until the bottom of the serabi golden brown before putting it aside.
If you want to add topping: before you close the lid of the pan, add slices of ham or cheese or chocolate sprinkle. Close the lid of the pan for a while (not too long), check if the bottom of the serabi is already golden brown, then put it aside.