Nye

Early Harvest, Early Rice Crops

This was taken at noontime on Friday and I was lucky enough to catch her while she was still out there harvesting her rice crops. I do have to say that the hot summer sun does wonders for the rice paddy.

I didn’t expect them to harvest their rice crops this early, but some are ready.

But some are no where near harvesting, these rice pods just came in, the smell of the new rice pods are in the air.

I was talking to my cousin last weekend and she said that the smell came from Kao Kom or purple rice plants, the new rice pods of Kao Kom, or even the leaves have a strong aroma. I heard from my oldest sister that the purple sticky rice are very hard and some are not eatable, but the owner of this paddy said that hers are very soft and chewy, just like a normal sticky rice, and she will give some for me to try.

My oldest sister said that she uses the store bought purple rice as a dye or coloring, which the owner of this paddy also agreed, and uses it to soak the white sticky rice, and as a result you get purple sticky rice.  Not the authentic purple rice at all and don’t be surprised if many restaurants use this technique, or the purple sticky rice desserts that you bought from the Asian Market or the festive events at Wat (temple) are actually white sticky rice.  This is like the Thai saying of ‘yorm mail kai’ (dying cat for sale), but this is often referring to giving an extreme makeover to a young lady in order to marry her off.

As for this purple rice, to get the best result, you first boil a couple handfuls of purple sticky rice until the water turns purple, let it sit to cool, then use this purple water to soak the white sticky rice, and for a deeper purple color, you can also soak more purple sticky rice with this by placing it in a thin cloth bag, and as a result, you get a soft chewy purple sticky rice.

My favorite Thai dessert, Purple Sticky Rice with Mango, photo borrowed from mhaithaca at Flickr.

This rice basket is commonly used by many to cook (steam) sticky rice, photo borrowed from Anne A Belle at Flickr.

Then I saw this while I was visiting my Aunt in Paksan Laos, and she said it’s called Moil.  It’s carved from wood, and very sturdy in comparison to the bamboo basket.

How to cook Sticky Rice by Manivan Larprom

9 comments

  2. thank you, this is interesting, I´ve never heard of Purple Sticky Rice, we can buy some called “Wild rice”, they are black – but they are a little expensive. The basket is also new to me, I can´t imagine how this can be used…what about the pot lid?

    • Hi giiid, I’m not an expert in cooking sticky rice since we eat mostly white rice at home as long as I could remember because my dad is half Chinese. I found a video in youtube that teaches how to cook Thai/Lao sticky rice and updated this post, I think this is a lot clearer than me trying to explain to you.

      The wild rice is totally different from the purple sticky rice and some people called it black sticky rice. These are the Glutinous rice that sticks together after steamed.

    • K, I’m very lucky to live close to this rice paddy, and learned so much from my own posts.

      I like your version of Sticky rice with Mango also, but that’s lots of coconut milk and serves chilled sounds real good, makes me hungry now. 🙂

  4. Nye, I want some of those kaow kum.. my mom can make many desert dishes with those rice:-)

    Kob jai again for sharing all the nice update pictures and also the song too.

    • seeharhed, you’re welcome, Aluna has a beautiful voice, I think she has grown on me, but just hope that she doesn’t take the place of Alexandra. 🙂
      If the owner of the rice paddy give me some Kaow Kum, I might try to make my favorite dessert dish, Purple sticky rice with mango.

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