A Beginner's Guide to Sabah Kuih

Kuih (also spelt kueh, or kue in Indonesia) are bite-sized snacks and sweets eaten across Southeast Asia, especially in the Malay Archipelago. The word comes from the Southern Min koé. There is no single English equivalent: depending on the kind, a kuih is closer to a cake, a fritter or a biscuit.

Why Sabah kuih are often crunchy

Many kuih in Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei are steamed, which keeps them soft. Kuih made by Sabah's indigenous communities are more often fried, so many of them are crisp or crunchy.

Kuih to try

• Pinjaram (penyaram): a round cake of rice flour, cornflour, coconut milk and sugar, crisp at the edge and soft in the middle. Its flying-saucer shape earns it the nickname 'UFO cake'. It is a traditional snack of the Bajau and Bruneian Malay communities, and in Sabah you'll see original, pandan and brown-sugar versions.
• Kuih cincin: crunchy ring-shaped biscuits made with rice flour and nipah palm sugar, a traditional snack of Sabah's Brunei Malay and Bajau communities.
• Hinompuka: a Kadazan-Dusun cake of glutinous rice flour, coconut milk and brown sugar, steamed rather than fried, and often served at the Kaamatan harvest festival.
• Kuih jala: a 'net cake'. A batter of rice flour, sugar and water is poured through a coconut shell pierced with small holes and fried into a sweet, crisp lattice.