Lookchoop (Thai Mung Bean Marzipan) 泰国王室小甜点



After last visit to Bangkok, I have been wanting to make this Thai dessert- Look Choop..Finally I spent about 4hrs to make it happened ! According to here, Look Choop was a Thai dessert that originated in the royal palaces of ancient Siam. Each of Look Choop shaped into mini size of fruits or vegetables and painted colourfully, as it was important that foods look attractive and draw the attention from royal members. I had this Thai dessert when I was a kid, can't remember who went to Hat Yai and brought back this for us.

 

This was the original Lookchoop I saw in Bangkok

 

My version ...

 

 

First prepared the mung bean filling..

 

 

Then shape it ..

 

Colour it ..

 

 

 

Last coat with agar-agar mixture for two times..

 

The first day, I made six difference shapes.

1. Corn on the cob

 

2. Cermai (Phyllanthus ) , a type of local fruit that usually peoples use to make pickled..

 

3. mangosteen 

 

4. carrot

 

5. mango

 

6. should be strawberry, but it turned out look more like cherry, LOL..

 

The next day, continued with another four patterns.

7. watermelon



 

8. orange

 

9. papaya

 

10. pomegranate

 

How it taste like? The filling is similar like Ang Ku Kueh's filling that using mung beans with a hint of coconut smell. The outer skin is coating with agar-agar, but it tasted crunchy, very good indeed. Homemade Lookchoop is less sweet since we can control the level of sweetness..and this recipe I made it tasted exactly same like those sold at Bangkok..

 

Desmond brought some to school for the Children's day celebration, it seem like even teacher never seen this type of Thai dessert before..

Making this dessert is quite additive ^_^, next time I want to try with natural food colouring, the artificial colouring used was quite scary ..
And my son Lucas suggested me to make it taste like real thing, corn must taste like corn, I fainted ,LOL..
For your information, the agar-agar mixture in this recipe can yield more than 85pcs, so I would suggest you to increase the mung beans amount. Also suggest to split cooking agar-agar mixture into two batches since it requires to dip Lookchoop in agar-agar mixture for two times.

Lookchoop (Thai Mung Bean Marzipan)

(recipe source: reference made to here, by Sonia aka Nasi Lemak Lover)
*makes appx 85pcs with each of the weight ranging from 6g – 8g

Filling ingredients

250g split yellow mung beans/green beans (clean and wash, soak for 2-4hrs, steam for 30mins)
1 cup fresh coconut milk
½ cup caster sugar

Outer skin ingredients

3 cups water
4tbsp sugar
2tbsp agar-agar powder
 

Food colouring-red, orange, lemon yellow, green, purple or etc

Tools- toothpick, styrofoam, Chinese Calligraphy brush, drinking water to mix with food colouring, few small containers to put the colouring, fresh lemon leaves (optional)

Method

1. Mix steamed mung beans with coconut milk and sugar in a food processor, process till fine paste.
2. Transfer mung bean paste into a small pot, stir with a wooden spatula over low heat till became thick paste or until it don’t stick to your dry hands, make sure you stir the mixture all the time.
3. Remove the ready mung bean paste and put into a container, lay a piece of cling film on top of the paste as to prevent it turned dry while cool down in the room temperature. Once cooled down, refrigerated for 1hr.
4. Now, is the fun part, and use your imagination to shape as real as possible. First take small portions of the mung bean mixture, roll and mould the mixture into the shape of your choice (most of the shaping job is using a toothpick (to create and draw the lines) and hands ). Put a toothpick to one end and another end poke into a piece of styrofoam. Leave it to dry and continue to mould the rest.
5. Adjust the tone of food colouring by adding a bit water, one small container for one type of colour. Gently hold the toothpick from below and use the Chinese calligraphy brush to paint the Lookchoop candy. Put them back on styroform.
6. Add agar-agar powder and sugar with water in a small saucepan, cook over medium heat till agar-agar melted. Once it boiled, change to very low. Scoop some agar-agar mixture into a small bowl (to prevent colour mix with the mixture) then dip the fruit shape into it and leave it dry on the styrofoam. Dip the rest of Lookchoop till finished.
7. Then, dip the Lookchoop for 2^nd time and leave it dry on styrofoam again. Once they have dried, decorate with leaves to make it look real (optional) and also remove the toothpick.
8. Store in the refrigerator before consume.

I am submitting this post to Asian Food Fest ( Thailand ) - November Month hosted by Lena of frozen wings

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all Hindu readers and bloggers a Happy Diwali and Happy Holidays !!