Her Belly says: Pulut Kapit

“Yanna, nak tengok tak atok buat Pulut Kapit ni?”

Pulut Kapit?

“Nak!”

Soon as the ‘news’ settled in, I rushed to the kitchen and nenek was so busy boiling a huge pot of glutinous rice while atok patiently cleaning a 75 years heavy slab of Cengal mold (Yes! You read it right!). Once the rice was cook to perfect, she'd leave it aside to cool awhile. I gave her a ‘helping’ hand in preparing the wrap, cutting the banana leaves.

Later the rice was poured and spread onto the wooden mold, pressed and covered with the banana leaves. According to atok, this is the most crucial step as we have to compact the rice firmly to ensure that the rice will be really compressed and compacted and once cool and hardened it is easy to cut into small squares or cubes. And to finish, he then put a heavy Cengal block like the big grinding stone on top of the rice, and leave them for a night.

And there it had stayed until the Eid morning when a miracle unravels before our eyes. *heh* Carefully nenek unwrapped the rice that had be compacted overnight into a huge slab of cake, and cut it into little cubes and the balance of the compacted rice was again wrapped into small parcels to ensure that the smell and the taste of the banana leaf stays.

And that is actually how this traditional dish of the Terengganu Malays got its name. "Kapit" in Malay means to compress or to compact or flatten, and various means are used to achieve it anyway. :D It is being served with either kuah kacang or the ever delicious chicken or beef rendang. But I just love to have it with nenek’s daging masak hitam. *sedap*

The cooked pulut


Pressed and compacted onto the mold


Covered with banana leaves


The pulut was left overnight for the miracle to happen and...


(the 75 years old Cengal mold)


ta-da, the Pulut Kapit

saya kekenyangan! dan akan menjadi gemok (bertambah) disini...