Glutinous or Sweet Rice Balls
are little glutinous rice balls filled with sweet palm sugar and grated coconut fillings, prepared with glutinous rice flour. The freshly grated coconut scrapings are then generously applied to the sweet rice balls.
Original flavour dough ingredients: glutinous rice flour, water and coconut milk.
Pandan flavour dough ingredients: glutinous rice flour, pandan leaves juice and coconut milk.
Grated coconut stuffing ingredients: grated coconut, palm sugar, and salt.
Palm jaggery filling, cut into small cubes.
Banana leaf bowl for Num Plae Ai.
Num Plae Ai
This Num Plae Ai is prepared with glutinous rice flour filled with palm jaggery, and grated coconut, and top with freshly grated coconut with roasted sesame seeds.
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
Fillings:
- Grated Coconut Filling:Place a pan over medium heat, add palm sugar, stir until starts bubbling, then add salt and stir. Add grated coconut, stir until well combine then transfer into a bowl and wait until warm to form round shape.Palm Jaggery:Cut 2 large pieces of palm jaggies into small cubes the same size as grated coconut filling.
Dough – 2 flavours
- Plain Flavour:In a mixing bowl, add glutinous rice flour, gradually add water and stir. Add coconut milk and mix. Knead the dough until smooth.Cover with plastic wrap and set aside.
- Pandan Leaf Flavour:In a blender, add cut pandan leaves and water and blend. Then extract the juice.
- In a mixing bowl, add glutinous rice flour, gradually add pandan juice, and stir. Add coconut milk and stir using spatula until you can use your hand to knead to dough until smooth.Cover with plastic wrap and set aside.
- Make a smooth ball out of a tiny portion of dough.
- Then flatten the ball with your thumbs to form a small circle, and drop a palm jaggery cube or grated coconut ball in the centre.
- Close the dough circle with your fingers, then smooth the edges to give it a ball form.
- Form a ball by softly smoothing with both palms in a circular motion without pressing.
- Repeat the process until all the dough with both flavours have been used.
- Place all the balls on the banana leaf.
- Boil a large quantity of water in a large pot over high heat. Once it's boiling lower the heat to medium and start dropping the balls ( not to overload the rice balls ).
- Cook them over medium high heat until they float to the surface. Then transfer into a large bowl of cool water and wait for 5 minutes.
- Then drain from the cool water with a slotted spoon.
Banana Leaf Bowl:
- Let's make the banana leaf bowl for Num Plae Ai.
- Rinse the banana leaves well with water and wipe away the dirt using kitchen towel or paper towel.
- Then use a round shape bowl to cut the banana leaves into round.
- Place two round cut banana leaves then pinch the centre part of the leaf and fold. Use a stapler to secure the leaf bowl. Flip the half edge over until it form as a bowl with a pyramid shape in the middle.
- (Optional) coat the bowl with coconut oil or coat the glutinous rice balls with coconut oil to avoid stickiness.
