Five-Color Sticky Rice (Xôi Ngũ Sắc) — Variant 2
A second sample recipe for Vietnamese five-color sticky rice, using red and purple cam leaves, green sticky leaves and turmeric for the natural colors, with condensed milk and sugar.
Ingredients
| — | 2 kg sticky rice |
| — | 200 gr red cam leaf |
| — | 200 gr purple cam leaf |
| — | 300 gr green sticky leaves |
| — | Fresh turmeric or turmeric powder |
| — | Condensed milk |
| — | White sand sugar |
| — | Sticky-rice mold (if any) |
Instructions
Preliminary treatment of the water for soaking the rice: • Red: First, clean the red leaf and cut it. Add 1 liter of water to a pot and bring to a boil. Boil the red leaf for about 2-3 minutes, remove it and filter/sieve the colored water. • Purple: Do the same as the red. • Green: Wash the sticky leaves and soak them in 1 liter of boiled water. You can use a blender to get green. Green is a bit difficult to color, so use many sticky leaves and crumble carefully to make dark green. • Yellow: Dissolve turmeric powder with boiling water, then filter out the residue and take only the water.
For the rice: after cleaning it, divide it equally into 5 portions and pour each into a cup with one of the 5 different colored waters. Soaking time is 3 hours or more; soak overnight to save cooking time.
How to make five-color sticky rice: Before cooking, drain the soaked rice in a basket. Mix the rice with a little milk and 1 tablespoon sugar for soft and sweet five-color sticky rice. Cooking is somewhat complicated because it uses several sticky-rice cookers at the same time. You can use a large pot with a piece of woven bamboo to separate the colors. How to cook delicious five-color sticky rice: 30-40 minutes.
Create beautiful molds: shape the sticky rice while it is hot; it will stick best and the mold will hold its square shape better.
Decorating: divide the sticky rice into 5 colors on one plate, or stack it in 5 levels.
Notes when cooking sticky rice: • Some people get the rice dry on top or pasty — due to too much rice or too tight compression blocking the vent, or not enough heat to ripen. • The secret to delicious, evenly ripe sticky rice: put rice in an autoclave, gently spread each layer by hand, cover the pot with a wet towel, keep the heat and don't lose water. • The water added to the autoclave should be about 1/3 of the pot capacity. Too much water makes the steam evaporate vigorously and the rice sticky. When the rice is undercooked, you can add more water.
Five-color sticky rice is often used during Tet and worshiping ceremonies. Some places serve it with grated coconut or salty rim meat.
Source: beptruong.edu.vn (xoi-ngu-sac).