The market · Grains and flours · Southeast Asia, East Asia

Glutinous rice

Short, opaque grains that cook sticky and chewy — no gluten, just a different starch. For lemang, mango sticky rice, bak chang and Lao and northern Thai meals.

sweet · sticky · chewy

What to do with it

Classics built on it
MinangkabauLamangGlutinous rice and coconut milk, packed into bamboo lined with banana leaf and cooked for hours at the edge of a fire.No one here has made it yetFujianBak changA pyramid of soy-darkened sticky rice wrapped in bamboo leaves round braised pork belly, mushroom, chestnut and salted egg yolk.No one here has made it yet

If you can't find it

Often sold as sweet rice or sticky rice. It contains no gluten.

No real swap

Nothing else turns sticky like that — ordinary rice won't. Look for the name sweet rice.

Goes with

coconut milkpandan leafmangopork

Knowing it

Where to buy
Thai, Chinese and Filipino grocers, labelled sweet or sticky rice.
Worth knowing
Soak it for at least four hours, then steam it rather than boiling.

Kitchens that keep it in

Zhejiang province, eastern ChinaZhejiangFresh, mellow and gently sweet: lake fish and river shrimp, young bamboo, cured ham and a good deal of Shaoxing wine, cooked to taste of themselves.7 classics

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