🇹🇱 Timorese Cuisine

Katupa

Woven Palm Leaf Rice Cake

Prep Time 4 hours
Servings 8
Difficulty Hard
Calories 212 kcal

Compressed rice cooked inside intricately woven palm leaf pouches, producing dense, chewy rice cakes that are sliced and served as a festive accompaniment to stews and curries.

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. 1 Weave coconut leaf strips into small diamond-shaped pouches, leaving an opening at the top for filling.
  2. 2 Fill each pouch halfway with washed rice, leaving room for the rice to expand during cooking.
  3. 3 Seal the pouches by folding the leaf tops and securing with a strip of leaf.
  4. 4 Place all pouches in a large pot of boiling salted water. Boil for three to four hours.
  5. 5 Remove pouches from water and let cool until firm. The rice compresses into solid, sliceable cakes.
  6. 6 Unwrap the palm leaves and slice the rice cake into pieces with a wet knife. Serve alongside stews.

Did You Know?

The art of weaving katupa pouches is traditionally taught from grandmother to granddaughter, and the speed of weaving is a source of family pride.