Khao Lam

Spice Level

Description

Khao Lam is sweet sticky rice mixed with coconut milk and black or red beans, slowly cooked inside a green bamboo tube over embers. The bamboo infuses the rice with a subtle, unique woody aroma. After cooking, the bamboo is split to reveal a cylinder of fragrant, soft and slightly sweet sticky rice. It is a popular travel snack, sold along roads and at markets.

History & Origin

Khao Lam is an ancestral dessert from rural Thai communities, particularly from the north and northeast. Cooking in bamboo is a primitive technique predating the invention of cooking utensils. Travelers and farmers carried Khao Lam as road provisions, with the bamboo serving as both cooking vessel and packaging.

Main Ingredients

• Bamboo
• Coconut milk
• Sticky rice
• Salt
• Palm sugar