As hinted by its name, this specialty is cooked in bamboo!
The capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, is a lush and modern city.
When trees are too old, instead of cutting them down, one can ask the architect to adapt to it! Neat idea for a greener city!
It appears they forgot to do that for the Petronas towers, even if the public park in front transformed into a lovely pedestrian zone.
We came across our very first Putu Bambu stall in front of the central market.
Despite being a local tradition, this recipe has been known in other countries as well.
The simple ingredients yield a surprisingly light humid texture.
Rice flour, tapioca flour, local palm sugar, ground coconut, and most of all, the pandan powder gives the dessert its green color as well as its unique taste.
Pandan is a thin tropical plant with long leaves. Hardly found in the wild, it’s cultivated across Asia for its culinary properties.
(Photo: Pandan fields in Bali)
Hollow bamboo tubes are first filled with (wet) palm sugar, then a mix of the other ingredients on top of it.
They’re steamed on a specialized tool: a cooking plate pierced with rows of holes barely smaller than the bamboo tube diameter. The steam passed through the holes, cooking the dough inside.
The cylindrical small cakes are then roughly pushed out of their bamboo shell, by hand, with a stick-like tool. Still warm, they roll in the ground coconut.
Finally, they’re prepared to be sold, and more importantly... savored!
It’s soft, light, sweet and savory. We’ll let you picture that and don’t forget to wipe the drool off your mouth!
This is another famous specialty found all across Southeast Asia, a kind of flatbread (or pancake), its dough closer to puff pastry.
It’s used just like bread, for both sweet and salty dishes.
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