Coconut Ginger Pudding

Coco-ginger pudding
[Click to enlarge]

Thursday afternoon, with a cup of Aroma coffee.
It's been a while since I saw packs of agar-agar in our drawer, and yesterday I was thinking of making something with fresh milk and ginger; maybe with other spice like cinnamon and clove. I was starring upon my fridge when I saw fresh young coconut, finely light-grated. Well, instead of making something deeply spicy like I thought earlier, I then decided to make something lighter.

Pudding:
3 cups fresh milk
1 cup ginger juice (and keep 1/4 squeezed grated ginger for sprinkle)
3 egg yolks
2.5 tbsp corn starch/ maizena
2/3 cup sugar (I used 1/3 cup of white cane sugar and 1/3 cup of brown palm sugar)
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup fresh young coconut, lightly grated
1 tbsp lemon zest
1 pack transparent agar-agar (Indonesian pack contains 7grams)

Garnish (sprinkle over):
Finely light-grated fresh young coconut
Ground cardamom (you can use ground nutmeg or cinnamon instead of cardamom)

Put 2.5cups of milk with ginger juice in a medium saucepan, simmer in medium heat. Sprinkle over 1/3 cup of light-grated coconut, and the grated ginger. stirring frequently, until it smells like ginger-milk. Set aside to cool.

In a medium bowl, put egg yolks, the remaining milk, sugar, salt, and corn starch. Whisk it throughly until well blended. Slowly, add about 1/4 part of the ginger-milk to the egg blend. Stirring constantly, so that you won't get the egg cooked. Add lemon zest to the mixture while keep stirring. Pour back the mixture to the remaining of ginger milk, simmer in medium heat. In a separate smaller bowl, liquify agar-agar with fresh drinking water. Add liquid agar-agar to the mixture, keep stirring and bring to boil. When the you feel it thickens and looks muddier, remove it from heat and pour it promptly to the pudding bowl or glasses. Sprinkle coconut and cardamom to garnish (Use strainer to sprinkle cardamom). Wait until it cooled on room temperature, then chill for about 5 hour.

I was really excited right when I pour the mixture to the glass. It was light brown, with mud texture. It tastes just as I thought it was: creamy but tangy, sweet and savory. The texture is sandy enough, and grated coconut makes it lighter. It is perfect with hot chai or spice coffee, with mild ginger scent and fresh lemony sting. Coconut ginger pudding: Indonesia defined.