How to make Bua Loi - Rice Balls in Warm Coconut Milk

Bua Loi is a very popular dessert in Thailand. It consists of small colourful balls made of glutinous rice flour in warm coconut milk. You can find it in street stalls as well as in restaurants, but you might have to pre-order it if it's not on the regular menu. It is also very easy to make Bua Loi at home or at school, like we did yesterday. You will need the following ingredients for your first test batch.

• 1 cup of glutinous rice flour per colour
  
• 2 1/2 cups of coconut milk
  
• 1-2 cups of palm sugar or white sugar, the amount depending on your taste
  
• 1 teaspoon of salt or a bit more
  
• Colouring such as pumpkin for yellow, pandan paste for green or just plain food colouring
  
• Some water
  

How to do:
Start by preparing the colouring. Boil and mash the pumpkin and mix pandan paste with water.
Put 1 cup of glutinous rice flour in a bowl. Mix it with enough water and colouring to make a colourful dough.

The pumpkin is boiled and ready to be mashed to make the yellow dough.

Add flour into a bowl.

Add colouring, in this case the pandan paste and water.

Mix flour, colouring and water.

Kneed until the dough looks like this, then it is ready for the next step.

Roll each batch of dough separately, and shape it all into little marble-sized balls.

Roll the balls in flour so that they don't stick together.

Bring water to a boil and toss in the flour balls and boil until done. They will float to the surface.

Remove with a slotted spoon and rinse with cool water, drain and set aside.

Warm the coconut milk over low heat with palm sugar and salt. Raise the temperature and bring to a low boil. Add the cooked Bua Loi balls, stir gently and serve in individual bowls.

And enjoy!

If you want you can add slices of young coconut flesh and poached eggs boiled in sweet water to your Bua Loi dessert.