Green Jelly - the cincau shrub

A friend gave me a recipe he learned from an Indonesian helper. It sounded like another version of the local dessert grassjelly or "cincau". The local cincau we see in the supermarkets or wet markets, apparently, is made from the herbaceous plant Mesona chinensis.

My friend's recipe uses leaves from the Indonesian cincau shrub, Premna pyramidata which we have a small bush in the Garden.

Today after breakfast, my fourteen-year old Oli and I decided to try out the recipe. We took took some leaves from the plant, crushed them by hands and then strained the crushed mixture through a muslin cloth. Olie, the photographer, was also busily snapping away. She is a pretty good multi-tasker! We left the resulting green liquid in the fridge to set.

The set jelly looked unusual and tasted like "chorophyll" or "grass". Either way, it was a bit of a disappointment. But then I had a brainwave - sweeten the jelly with honey, the same way we eat "Gui Ling Kau" - it worked!

This plant, Premna pyramidata, is a sprawling shrub. It is easy to grow as it roots from stem cuttings and the plant needs minimum care and attention.

Business potential - a new dessert in the making? Maybe.....