Home-cook-Madam-Ho-Soo-Pong-and-her-Hainanese-kueh-Yi-Bua
Madam Ho Soo Pong tweaked her recipe for yi bua over the years after attending several cooking classes. (Photo: Mark Cheong/The Straits Times)

Avid home cook Madam Ho Soo Pong started her YouTube channel to showcase a mix of original content and food videos. The 65-year-old Hainanese retiree who’s a former senior associate engineer in the technical planning department of a telecommunications company, says: “I picked up video editing from my colleague. After I retired in 2009, I attended a video-editing course. It was quite easy for me to pick up the skills because I already had some background knowledge.”

Her food videos centre on Hainanese-style home cooking and include dishes such as stir-fried pig intestines with vegetables and fried large beansprouts with vermicelli. She is excited to share her recipe for yi bua, a traditional Hainanese glutinous rice flour kueh filled with a coconut, ginger, sesame and peanut filling that has been sweetened with gula melaka.

Home-cook-Madam-Ho-Soo-Pong-making-her-Hainanese-kueh-Yi-Bua
Making Yi Bua is not difficult but takes lots of patience and practice to get perfect. (Photo: The Straits Times)

Madam Ho learnt the recipe for yi bua from a relative and has tweaked it over the years after attending several cooking classes.

For example, she recommends adding 1½ tbsps of plain flour to the coconut filling so that it is easier to mould and work with. However, she says, once a home cook becomes more familiar with the filling’s texture, the flour can be left out.

The same ingredients can also be used to make art bua, a flat kueh tossed in coconut filling (see Step 13 for how to make it.) Yi bua is usually enjoyed on special occasions such as housewarming parties and weddings, whereas art bua is more of an everyday treat and eaten at dinner parties and other casual gatherings.

Hainanese-Kueh-Yi-Bua
Yi bua is a glutinous rice flour kueh filled with a coconut, ginger, sesame and peanut filling that has been sweetened with gula melaka. It’s usually enjoyed on special occasions such as housewarming parties and weddings. (Photo: The Straits Times)

Madam Ho, who is married to Mr Lim Ah Foo, 72, a retired air traffic controller with whom she has two grown-up daughters, started baking and cooking when she was in secondary school. Now that she is retired, besides looking after her four grandchildren, aged from five months to 11 years old, and activities such as practising yoga and playing the ukulele, she spends her days in the kitchen.

Madam Ho’s specialities include pandan chiffon cake, various types of Nonya and Hainanese kueh, mooncakes and festive cookies. For her, sharing home-cooked food with others gives her a sense of satisfaction. She says: “When people eat my food and enjoy it, it makes me proud, happy. And that’s all that matters.”

Go to the next page for the full recipe and how-to video on making Hainanese Yi Bua.

How to make Hainanese yi bua

Make traditional Hainanese yi bua, a #kueh with a coconut, ginger, sesame and peanut filling sweetened with gula melaka. http://str.sg/4tSv #recipes #straitstimesfood

Posted by The Straits Times Food on Saturday, 4 November 2017

Click the video above to follow Madam Ho’s step-by-step instructions on how to make Hainanese Yi Bua.

Click here for the full Hainanese Yi Bua recipe.

Text: Rebecca Lynne Tan/The Straits Times

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