Serunding kelapa is a delicious, lightly spiced side dish that is popular in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei.
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
What is Serunding Kelapa?
It is freshly grated coconut that’s seasoned with spices and tamarind, then cooked (with no added oil) until it’s dry-ish but still moist.
It has toasty, nutty, caramel and spicy flavours, and depending on the cook, can be sweet or hot, or a mix of both.
There are, essentially, 3 types of serunding:
- serunding kelapa – with just coconut as the filling (kelapa = coconut)
- serunding daging – made with beef (daging = meat)
- serunding ayam – with chicken (ayam = chicken)
How is Serunding Kelapa Eaten?
Think of it as a condiment or topping. Much like sambals and chutneys, it is used to enhance your meal. For eg, if you are having some rice and sayur lemak, that vegetable coconut stew, you’d finish dishing it up with a spoonful of this serunding kelapa.
Another common way of using serunding kelapa is to coat glutinous rice balls with it. Recipe soon, I promise!
And hopefully, you don’t have to wait too long for the other two types of serunding either! The image below shows you a typical Malay meal of rice, sayur lemak, sambal goreng, a little red sambal and finally, some serunding.
What Coconut to Use?
The best coconut you can use for serunding is the freshly grated kind. This will produce the finest, softest serunding kelapa. Next best thing will be the frozen grated coconut found in ethnic stores.
I can’t get freshly grated coconut in the shops here in the UK, so I do one of the following:
- either grate the coconut myself using a manual grater like this one, sold on Amazon. You basically clamp it to your kitchen counter or table and grate away. I have to warn you though, the grater isn’t of the best quality, it tends to move after a while. But you get what you pay for, and it takes me about 5 minutes to grate 1 coconut, so I’m pretty happy, especially since this method gives me the best texture for serunding.
- or use the frozen grated coconut found in south Asian shops. This is passable for serunding, it’s just on the coarse side, no not quite floss, as seen in the images here.
I use this a lot as it is, defrosted on cakes and desserts or to extract coconut milk.
Oh, and if you are Singaporean or Malaysian reading this, I have it with putu mayam (idiyappam in India) too or use it to make putu bambu. One day, guys, I’ll post the recipes!
So if you can’t get either of the above, use desiccated coconut. To make up for the loss in flavour, we add a small amount of coconut milk to it to make our serunding kelapa.
Some Ingredients to look for
Click on the buttons above to read more about each of these ingredients, what they are, how to use them and how to substitute them.
The gula melaka and dried shrimp are on LinsFood, which means they’ll open in a new tab for you.
And that’s that! Look out for the other two serunding in the coming weeks. But in the meantime, shall we get cooking?
More Recipes to Enjoy
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Lin xx
How to make Serunding Kelapa
Equipment
- knife and chopping board
- Food chopper
- frying pan or wok
- ladle
- jar for storing
- bowl
- saucer
- side plate
- spoons as needed
Ingredients
- 2 coconuts, grated, white flesh only (about 300g/10.5 oz) OR 200g (7 oz) desiccated coconut
- 1 stalk lemongrass
- 4 kaffir lime leaves, optional
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 Tbsp white sugar
- 1 Tbsp gula melaka or palm sugar
- 125 ml coconut milk ONLY IF USING DESICCATED COCONUT
Whole Dry Spices (use ground, if you prefer)
- 3 Tbsp coriander seeds OR 2 Tbsp ground
- 1 Tbsp fennel seeds OR 2 tsp ground
- 1 Tbsp cumin seeds OR 2 tsp ground
Ingredients to be ground
- 2 heaped Tbsp tamarind pulp OR 3 Tbsp paste from shop bought jar
- 60 ml water for the tamarind omit if using shop bought tamarind paste
- 1 large onion
- 3 fresh red chillies
- 2 large cloves garlic
- 1 lemongrass
- 2.5 cm ginger
- 2 tsp ground turmeric
- 1 tsp galangal paste OR 2.5cm (1") fresh
- 2 candlenuts, optional OR 2 macadamia nuts or 1 cashew nut OR just leave out
- 1 Tbsp dried prawns leave out if vegetarian
Instructions
Soak the Tamarind
- Put the kettle on and place the tamarind pulp in a bowl.
- Pour about 60ml (¼ cup) boiling water over the pulp and cover with a saucer. Leave to soak while you get the other ingredients going.
Dry Fry the whole spices
- We will be toasting the spices, then grinding them to a powder in a spice or coffee mill. Skip this step by using ground coriander, fennel and cumin. It's up to you. I love freshly ground spices in serunding.
- Place the coriander seeds, fennel seeds and cumin seeds into a small frying pan and toast them over medium-low heat for 2 minutes. You'll get a nutty, toasty fragrance from this. Tip out onto a plate and leave to cool, while you go on with the other prep work.
More Prep Work
- Peel, then quarter the onion. Drop into your chopper.
- Halve or roughly chop the chillies and add to the chopper.
- Peel the garlic and add to the chopper.
- Lemongrass – you have 2. One, we'll be using whole, the other is going in the paste.Slice off the tough bottom end (the root end) of both the lemongrass. And cut off the top part, leaving about 10 cm/4 inches of stalk. Peel off the top layer, if it's particularly dry or dirty, or looking a little yellow. If not, leave it alone. Rinse your lemongrass and dry.Whole – place your lemongrass on a chopping board and bash hard on the thick end with the back of your knife. This is called bruising your lemongrass. Set aside until cooking time.Second lemongrass – slice into thin rings and add to the chopper.You can read more about how to prepare lemongrass for use in this post.
- Slice the ginger and add to the chopper.
- Add the turmeric and galangal to the chopper too.
- Bash your candlenuts with the back of your spoon to split into two, then drop into the chopper.
- Add the dried prawns too. I don't bother presoaking them.
Let's make the Serunding Paste
- Mash the tamarind with your fingers (it should be cool enough now). Then fish out the seeds and pulp, discard, and pour everything else into your chopper. Or use a sieve with a large mesh.
- Remember those whole spices we toasted? Tip them into a spice mill (or coffee mill) and grind to a powder. Then tip into your chopper with the other ingredients.
- Now, finally, grind everything to a fairly smooth paste. You shouldn't need any water, but if you do, add a tiny amount.
Cooking our Serunding
- Tip your coconut and everything else into your chosen frying pan or wok. So that's the whole lemongrass, lime leaves, salt and both sugars.Then pour the serunding paste all over. Mix thorougly with your hands (the turmeric will stain your nails and the chillies may be hot, so use gloves if you want).Taste it now to check seasoning. Add a little more salt if you want.If using desiccated coconut, add the coconut milk too.
- Now, place your pan on medium heat as it is, no oil needed, let the serunding heat up for 2 minutes.
- Lower the heat to medium-low, when everything's had a chance to heat through and cook, stirring constantly until it gets a little dry and is giving off a wonderful toasty and spicy fragrance. This will take about 15-20 minutes.Leave to cool, then store in an airtight container, as described in the post above.
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