Cooking Glutinous Rice (Pulut)

I loved 'pulut' as a child. In fact everyone in the family loved 'pulut'. We, Northerners eat 'pulut' for breakfast, 'pulut' with durians and 'ketupat pulut' during festivals and feasts.Nowadays, I have to go slow on the 'pulut' due to health reasons. I do not cook sweet dishes, cakes or biscuits anymore because there is no demand as the children are all away from home.

When my children were small, I used to cook a lot of pulut dishes. As I had 'inherited' my late Mother -in -law's steamer, I had experimented a lot of steaming recipes with it before I graduated to a larger steamer. The steamer has remained in my home ever since.

We enjoyed 'pulut serimuka', a steamed dessert with creamy pulut as the bottom layer and a sweet green custard on top.Sometimes I adapted it with a top layer made from yellow corn custard instead of the green screw pine flavour. I also made 'pulut pisang ' by using half a banana as filling and then wrapping it in banana leaves before steaming it, just like my own Mum used to do. For a savoury 'pulut', I remember making 'pulut panggang' ('pulut' with a mild spicy hot filling consisting of salted dried shrimp and coconut wrapped in banana leaves and grilled over charcoal or cooked in an oven)  for my daughter's Canteen Day at school. We would sell the 'pulut panggang' and donate the entire takings to the school.

The latest 'pulut' was the 'pulut kuning' I cooked during my second daughter's engagement in August 2009.

My eldest daughter, Nurul had been trying to cook 'pulut' but sometimes, it turned sticky or soggy. You see, 'pulut' rice has more water compared to normal rice. To cook 'pulut' without turning soggy, you need to fill the water or coconut milk up to the level of the rice, before you steam it. Please note that when cooking normal rice, the volume of water is equal or slightly more than the volume of rice. But in the case of pulut, the water volume is less. I have successfully made 'lopis' which I shared with my neighbour; as you make nasi impit, by adjusting the the volume of rice placed in a small cylindrical plastic bag. {'Lopis' is another 'pulut' dish eaten with sweet gula melaka (palm sugar) and scraped coconut}.

Perhaps the traditional method of preparing normal 'pulut', or 'pulut kuning' (yellow glutinous rice or 'nasi kunyit' as popularly known in my home State), is to presoak it in cold water overnight  in a covered pot and adding a few pieces of tamarind (asam keping). In this method, the rice will definitely not be soggy. You add enough turmeric powder to the water to colour the rice when you want to cook 'nasi kunyit'. I do not suggest you use a plastic bowl for fear of staining it yellow with the turmeric. Otherwise, if you want the normal 'pulut', you omit the turmeric powder.

 Steaming the Rice

Fill the lower part of the steamer with cold water and place it on the cooking stove. Light the fire to heat the water. Meanwhile, cut a piece of banana leaf, wipe it clean and place it in the upper steamer. You can use a fine wire meshed strainer if you cannot find any banana leaves.Using this method would ensure that the rice is evenly cooked.

Drain the 'pulut rice' and place it on the banana leaf or the metal strainer in the upper steamer. Cook for about 15 minutes to half an hour depending on the amount of rice being cooked. When the rice is cooked, add salted coconut milk, a little at a time and stir and mix well to ensure that the coconut milk is evenly applied. Continue steaming for a few more minutes. Add more coconut milk if the rice appears dry.

I hope this tips are enough for Nurul to prepare her 'pulut' when she wants to. I will try to post specific recipes from my recipe book later. Meanwhile, why not try this rolled glutinous rice with rendang?