Picturesque, pretty, and perky, the ketupat rice cake (and
its handwoven basket shell) have widespread historical roots
throughout Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei: ketupat
is the signature, traditional food item eaten (and fabricated
at home) during the Muslim festival of Hari Raya Idulfitri.
Busy street satay vendors throughout Southeast Asia weave
and sell these special, boiled regional rice packets for both
holiday use and everyday consumption. Banana leaf ketupat
(lomtong)--wrapped in an elongated, loaf-shaped bundle—is
a common, quotidian food item throughout the Indonesian archipelago
(a coconut leaf version is reserved for special ceremonial
usages on Java). Ketupat daun palas from northern Malaysia
combines glutinous rice with rich coconut milk, water, and
salt moulded into a triangular casing woven out of long fan
palm (palas) leaves (Licuala species). Palas leaves
are purchased from the marketplace, wiped clean from their
hairy husks, trimmed at the tips, folded out flat, and then
rolled up lengthwise to increase flexibility. A skilful
set of twists, turns, and targeted creases produces the beautifully
designed, rice-ready ketupat shells: their tail ends are knotted
to prevent both raw and cooked contents from spilling out.
When done, the cooked ketupat leaves turn a telltale yellowish
brown. (Fragrant pandanus fronds are a secondary, optional
weaving material.) Names, shapes, sizes, configurations
and sexes vary: different basket-folding techniques produce
either a ketupat betina (“female” ketupat) or
a ketupat jantan (“male” ketupat).
The Balinese incarnation of the ketupat benefits from legendary
Balinese artisanry, local talent for food practicality and
invention, peasant farmer culinary skills, tropical topographical
raw materials, and an island-wide reverence for rice.
In Bali (and Singapore), ketupat baskets (urung) are normally
constructed out of young, pale-green coconut palm leaves:
the central spine is removed first with a paring knife to
split the leaves into two ribbon-like halves. The long,
thin, trailing coconut leaves are then braided together in
an intricate, yet simple tango of vertical and horizontal
interlocking loops. These charming, rustic rice accomplices
are an engrained part of Balinese food culture: ceremonial
offerings command exotic, highly crafted constructions, while
standard, everyday ketupat nasi, also known as ketupat biasa
(common or ordinary) or ketupat bekel (victual provisions)
are confined in small, flat, unprepossessing, three-inch square
pockets (or in onion-shaped domes called ketupat bawang).
Balinese ketupat are always made with plain white rice and
form a complete meal, while their sociable, banana boat cousins
in Java are eaten with beef or chicken rendang, satés,
chicken curry, gado gado with peanut sauce, serunding (fried,
grated coconut pulp mixed with sugar—or spices and beans),
and sayur lodeh (a Central Javanese coconut milk and vegetable
stew).
Ketupat self-confidence comes with experience (enthusiastic
expatriates need a friendly Balinese teacher or a good fold-out
diagram)—a skilled practitioner (or even a small Balinese
child) can complete a basic, coconut leaf ketupat container
in under a minute. Dexterous, traditional Balinese cooks
pry open a space between the loosely woven leaves (or use
an opening in the top end) to inject raw rice grains: the
little basket is then filled from halfway to three-quarters
full and placed in boiling water for anywhere from thirty
minutes to three hours (multiples are cooked simultaneously
in a large pot). There is much method to this seeming
culinary madness: as it cooks, the rice expands to fill the
container and becomes a solid, compact square block which
can be sliced for serving. These inescapably charming
Balinese rice wrappings are hung aloft in the kitchen: because
of the prolonged hours of boiling, ketupat keep well and can
be used to house and store rice for two or more days without
refrigeration. Ketupat is popular because leaf-cooked
rice is softer in texture than regular steamed or boiled rice.
Ketupat can also be deliberately overcooked (for up to eight
hours), rendering it therapeutically soft and easy for elderly
people to digest (called ketipat nyaling, meaning “slippery”).
Chewy ketupat packages are eminently portable: farmers cart
ketupat cargo out to the rice paddies for nourishment, children
transport them to school, and food sellers who cannot cook
fresh rice sequester resuscitative ketupat in their emergency
inventory. Common sense and experience dictates that—even
in spiritually pristine Bali—rice deteriorates rapidly
after less than a day out in the open. Nevertheless,
the optimistic, smiling, cheerful Balinese swear to the staying
power and protective properties of these cherished, compound-born,
ketupat “rice barongs.” Good triumphs over
evil in Balinese rice versus rot: everything is possible on
the island of the gods!
These supremely edible, lontar-basket-like ornaments enter
the Balinese religious lexicon as ceremonial culinary icons.
Renowned Pura Taman Pule in Mas (repository of the wandering
Hindu sage Nirartha’s personal relics), celebrates the
end of the ten-day Galungan-Kuningan holiday period with an
elaborate, five-day extravaganza of three-hour masked dance
performances, romantic Ramayana dramas, and resounding gamelan
orchestras to please and entertain gods, ancestors, and pilgrims.
Sacred activities commandeer crowded village streets: men
file outside escorting holy images of the gods (pratima) in
golden, glittering, shoulder-born jampana (small, house-like
structures) to visit nearby temples to pray. An army
of fried-fritter-wielding Javanese food stalls sets up in
the barren, dusty playing field fronting the temple: the most
popular dish among festival worshippers is eye-pleasing, homespun
ketupat. Warung merchants hang the treasures overhead
as archetypal traditional artefacts: they take one down, cut
it diagonally into small pieces (casing still intact) with
a (somewhat hygienically suspect) pair of scissors, excavate
the ketupat out of its petite plaited pouch, and serve up
the sticky rice chunks with scorching doses of chillies and
brown sauce.
These specially compressed rice treats are available at the
handsomely decorated, appropriately named Ketupat Restaurant
at Jalan Legian 109, Kuta (tel. 754209), serving elegant,
genuine, Indonesian high cuisine in a recessed, Balinese-style
inner courtyard (boasting thatch-roofed dinner pavilions and
transplanted rice barns). A gorgeous, round, ring of
fire rijsttafel platter induces a state of cultural and culinary
astonishment: beef rendang, tempe, tofu with peanuts, corn
fritters, tuna puff pastry, chicken legs, cooked vegetable
exotica, and hard-boiled eggs in spicy red sambal thrill the
senses, while naked ketupat blocks (coaxed out of their miniature
coconut pouches) preen in the center. Ketupat history
lessons abound and staff will proudly bring a hanging, processed
bundle of joy over to your table for a personal, hands-on
inspection!
