Zero Waste Recipe: Sweet Potato With Coconut Milk Dumplings

Earlier this year, chefs across Thailand competed in the Zero Waste Cooking Competition, a celebration of innovative eco-friendly cooking. Winner chef Jay of Iniala Beach House won with a creative take on bua loy, a traditional Thai dessert which features chewy rice balls cooked in coconut milk and sugar. Jay’s version, however, is made with sweet potato: the pulp of the potato is mixed with corn flour to make the dumplings, and the potato skin is blended with coconut milk to create a creamy sauce. Keen to give it a go? Here’s the recipe below.

Recipe: Bua Loy

Bua loy or rice balls in coconut milk is a traditional Thai dessert which is easy to prepare, tasting pleasantly sweet with chewy rice balls. Across Thailand, you’ll find lots of colourful and flavoured variations, made with everything from taro to pumpkin. This version is made using sweet purple potato.

Ingredients:

For the dough

• 250g boiled peeled purple sweet potatoes
• 150g glutinous rice flour

For the sweet coconut milk

• Sweet purple potato peel (do not throw away) 
• 300ml coconut milk  
• 100g sugar 
• ½ tsp salt

Method:

For the dough

1. Mix the glutinous rice flour and mashed sweet purple potato using your fingers until well mixed. 
2. Add water, a little at a time, and knead until a dough forms. The dough should be soft but not sticky or tacky. If it becomes sticky, just add a little more flour and knead until it no longer sticks to your fingers. 
3. Roll each piece either between the palms of your hands or the tips of your fingers so you have little balls.  
4. Bring a pot of water to a full boil, and while waiting for the water to boil, make the sweet coconut milk. 
5. Drop the bua loy into the boiling water in batches without crowding the pot. Within 1 minute they should float, and as soon as they float, fish them out using a slotted  spoon and put them directly in the bowl of cold water (they will sink in cold water). 

For the sweet coconut milk: 

1. Mix the coconut milk and sweet purple potato peel together and blend them.
2. Put them into a pot add sugar, salt and cook over medium heat, stirring until all the  sugar is dissolved. Taste and add more sugar as needed 
3. To assemble: Drain the bua loy well and add them to the coconut milk. 
4. Heat the coconut bua loy mixture just until it comes back to a simmer so that the bua loy can absorb the flavour of the coconut milk, and turn the heat off immediately.

Recipe from inialathailand.com