Agar-agar Cayalah

RAMADHAN... a blessed month for all Muslims. This is the month where we have to fast from dawn to sunset. My parents started training us to fast as early as 6 years old. At that age, we're allowed (by our parents) to fast half the day. We can break our fast around noon, if we can't manage. But normally during weekends, we're encouraged to fast the whole day.

I started to fast the whole day when I was 7. The first day of Ramadhan that year, at about 6pm, I just couldn't take it anymore. Hunger and thirst striked me badly. Well, it's understandable, being so young and had to go to school in the morning with a humid weather wasn't easy. Over here, iftaar is normally around 7.20 pm. Mom tried very hard to cool me down. But I just continued crying. I had a tantrum actually and started lying down on the floor while kicking the kitchen door till my mom lost her patience.... poor mom! She went into the kitchen, made me a big glass of milk and asked me to drink it...but with a few words of thought.... how I will regret breaking the fast after suffering the whole day and just an hour to go....hahaha.... clever mom! I stopped crying and just stared at the milk.... I DIDN'T DRINK IT! And for that year, I managed to fast the whole day, the whole month! Mom's reverse psychology works!




AGAR-AGAR CAYALAH

Ingredients :

10g agar-agar powder
1 litre water
300g sugar
1 can evaporated milk (400g)
A bit of salt
Strawberry essence
Pink food coloring

Method :

1. Pour water and agar-agar powder in a pot and boil on medium heat.
2. Add sugar and let it dissolve. Stir, once in a while.
3. Add in strawberry essence and food coloring.
4. Dissolve salt in the evaporated milk.
5. When the agar-agar mixture boils, add in the evaporated milk. Stir and let it boil once before removing from the heat. At the stage, keep an eye on the pot as the mixture will spill out of the pot if the heat is too high.
6. Pour the mixture into the pyrex dish. Leave to cool before keeping it in the refrigerator to set.