Recipe: Es teler - Iced mixed fruit drink

Es teler is a very simple refreshing drink to make, as long as you have an Asian grocery nearby. Westerners like this as dessert.

Ingredients

Most of the ingredients to making Es teler are found in the canned fruit aisle. These include:

• two cans of jackfruit
• a can of young coconut meat
• a jar of coconut gel cubes
• a can of attap (nipah palm) fruit.
• a couple of fresh avocados
• some crushed ice
• some condensed milk (more on that later)

Jackfruit, coconut meat, coconut gel cubes and attap fruit

Directions

Step 1: Drain the cans of jackfruit and cut the fruit into strips about ½ cm (¼ inch) in width. Add the jackfruit strips to a large bowl.

Step 2: Drain the can of young coconut meat (reserving the syrup) and cut the coconut into thin strips of ½ cm (¼ inch) in width. Add the coconut strips to the bowl with the jackfruit. Add the reserved coconut syrup to the bowl as well.

Step 3: Open the can of attap fruit and add the fruit plus half the syrup to the bowl with the jackfruit and coconut strips.

Step 4: Drain the jar of coconut gel and add the gel cubes to the bowl with the other ingredients.

Step 5: Halve the avocados, remove the pits, and cut them into a 1 cm (½ inch) dice. Scoop out the diced avocadoes into the bowl with the other fruit.

Step 6: Gently mix everything to combine.

Cool and Sweet

Step 7: At this point, you have a big bowl of room temperature fruit - not too appetizing, especially on a hot day. Add several cups of crushed ice to the bowl to cool things down a bit.

Step 8: The ice will dilute the sweetness of the fruit. To bring some of that sweetness quotient back to the es teler, add 5 to 8 tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk to the bowl. Start with a little condensed milk, stir it in gently, and taste and add more condensed milk until the es teler reaches your desired sweetness.

Step 9: Ladle out the es teler into individual cups or bowls, making sure each one gets some of everything.

I can't say which individual component I like best about es teler. Each fruit contributes its own unique and pleasant character to the whole dessert. All I know is, we never have any leftovers, but we always have requests for the es teler recipe. So, to all you es teler lovers out there, here you go!

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