Home > Kolak Biji Salak (Sweet Potato Balls in Palm Sugar and Coconut Milk Sauce)

Kolak Biji Salak (Sweet Potato Balls in Palm Sugar and Coconut Milk Sauce)

Posting Date: 09/03/17

Kolak Biji Salak (Sweet Potato Balls in Palm Sugar and Coconut Milk Sauce) is a popular Indonesian dessert. My mom used to make it when I was growing up and I sometimes helped her shaping the dough into balls. It can be served warm or cold. Traditionally, it is served warm but I found cold is better in a hot day. You can even serve it topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. In Indonesia, yam is normally used to make it but you can also use sweet potato. If you are not familiar with Indonesian language, biji means seed and salak is a name of a fruit. The reason it is called biji salak is because the balls are shaped like salak seed and look like it, too in term of size and color. There are 2 types of kolak, kolak pisang and kolak biji salak. The sauce is similar between the two. Kolak Pisang uses banana and slices of yam or sweet potato while kolak biji salak uses sweet potato or yam shaped as a ball. They are both delicious. The sweet potato balls in kolak biji salak sometimes remind me of boba or tapioca pearls/balls used in bubble tea. It has almost the same texture, i.e. slightly chewy. Unlike bubble tea, you need a spoon, instead of a straw, to eat the balls because the balls are big. So, I always think kolak biji salak is an Indonesian version of boba.

This recipe serves 4 people.

Ingredients:

For sweet potato ball dough: 500 g sweet potato or yam, peeled and diced
For sweet potato ball dough: 200 g tapioca starch
For ice bath: ice cubes
For palm sugar syrup: 250 g palm sugar
For palm sugar syrup: 1 liter water or 4 cups water
For palm sugar syrup: 1/4 teaspoon salt
For palm sugar syrup: Optional: 1/2 teaspoon corn starch. This is to thicken palm sugar syrup if you prefer.
For palm sugar syrup: Optional: 1/2 teaspoon water. This is to thicken palm sugar syrup if you prefer.
For coconut milk: 150 ml coconut milk
For coconut milk: pinch of salt

Methods:

Boil sweet potato or yam in a pot until it is fully cooked and soft. Drain the liquid and transfer sweet potato to a bowl. Using potato masher, mash cooked sweet potato or yam until it is completely smooth and there is no small chunk left.
Instead of dumping the whole tapioca starch to the mashed sweet potato, I add only 3 tablespoons of tapioca starch first to the mashed sweet potato. Using rubber spatula, mix the dough well. By adding tapioca starch little by little, it is easier to mix it well with mashed sweet potato. Repeat this step until all tapioca starch has been used.
Take 1 teaspoon of the dough and shape it to make a ball using the palm of your hands. Repeat this step until all dough has been used.
Boil water in a pot. While waiting for the water to boil, prepare ice bath by mixing ice cubes with cold water in a big bowl.
Once it is boiling, drop some of the dough so that the bottom of the pot is covered by the ball. Do not stack the ball on top of each other because the ball will float once it is fully cooked. Depending on the size of your pot, you may need to do it in several batches. Once all the balls have been floating, use a spider wok strainer to take the balls out. Let as much of water to drain back to the pot before putting the balls in the ice bath bowl. Repeat this step until all balls have been cooked. The ice bath is used so that the balls will not stick to each other.
While waiting for the balls to cool down, place palm sugar, 1 liter of water, and salt in a pot and heat it over high heat. Stir it from time to time to help dissolve palm sugar. Once it is boiling and palm sugar has been dissolved, if you want to thicken it, mix corn stach and water in a small bowl and whisk it. Add corn starch mixture to the boiling palm sugar and whisk it until it is slightly thicken. I personally don't like thick syrup, so I don't use corn starch to thicken it. Remove the palm sugar syrup from the heat and set it aside.
Place coconut milk in another small pot and heat it over medium high heat. Add salt. Once it is boiling, reduce the heat to low and stir it with rubber spatula to prevent it from curdling. After 2 min, remove from heat and set it aside.
Drain sweet potato balls from the ice bath.
If you want to serve it warm, place several balls in a small bowl, take several tablespoons of palm sugar syrup and top it with several tablespoons of coconut milk. If you want to serve it cold, store the balls, coconut milk, and palm sugar syrup each in a separate container in the fidge. Once it is cool, place several balls in a small bowl and serve them with several tablespoons of palm sugar syrup and coconut milk.

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