Bubur ketan hitam - Indonesian black rice porridge from Indorock
Bubur ketan hitam is an Indonesian black glutenous rice porridge served as breakfast or as an afternoon pick me up. It's quite heavy, but in smaller portions it also makes for a nice dessert.
Equipment
- Large pot x 3
- Small saucepan
- Pan for shallow frying
- Slotted spoon
- Paper towels
Ingredients
For the rice
- 7 oz - 200 gr black glutinous rice
- 6 makrut lime leaves
- 0.5" - 2 cm ginger peeled
- 2.5 oz - 75 gr gula jawa this is Javanese palm sugar, accept no substitute!
- 1/2 t - 2.5 gr salt
For the pandan coconut milk
- 13.5 oz - 400 ml coconut milk look for coconut milk with low water content, it's often marked by stores as coconut milk for desserts
- 1/4 t - pinch salt
- 2 large pandan leaves tied into a knot, OR
- 1/2 t - 2.5 gr pandan paste be sure to get paste, pandan essence is gross
For the sweet potato chips
- 6.5 oz - 200 ml water
- 6.5 oz - 200 gr plain sugar
- 1/2 sweet potato cut into thin slices
- sunflower oil for frying
To serve
- 1/2 lime
- 1 handful pistachios unsalted, roughly crushed
Instructions
The night before (or 8 hrs ahead of time)
- Wash 7 oz - 200 gr of black glutenous rice and soak it in at least double the amount of water overnight.
To make the rice porridge
- Add 4 c - 1 liter of water to the glutenous rice and the water you used to soak it in overnight. Add 6 lime leaves, grate 05" - 2 cm of ginger into the pan and mix it into the rice.
- Bring to the boil, turn down the heat and leave to simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to avoid burning.
- Stir in 2.5 oz - 75 gr of gula djawa and 1/2 t - 2.5 gr of salt and leave to simmer for an additional 15 minutes. Your rice should now have reached a porridgy consistency. Remove from the heat and set aside.
To make the pandan coconut milk - make this while the rice is cooking
- While the rice is cooking, slowly heat 13.5 oz - 400 ml coconut milk in a saucepan with 1/4 t - pinch salt and 2 large pandan leaves tied into knots or 1/2 t - 2.5 gr of pandan paste.
- Allow the flavors to slowly combine for around 10 minutes before removing the pan from the heat.
To make sweet potato chips - make this while the rice and coconut milk are cooking
- Bring 6.5 oz - 200 ml water to the boil with 6.5 oz - 200 ml of plain sugar.
- One the sugar water mixture has come to the boil, briefly cook the thin slices of sweet potato in the sugar water - 5 minutes or so. Remove and pat dry.
- Now heat some sunflower oil in a pan to 360° F - 180° C. You can test whether the oil is the right heat by throwing in one potato slice. If the oil comes to a ferocious bubble immediately, you're ready to fry.
- Fry the sweetened sweet potato slices to a crisp and leave them to cool on some paper towels.
To serve
- Squeeze some lime juice into the rice porridge to bring up the flavor, or serve lime wedges on the side so people can adjust according to their own taste.
- Depending on how many people you're serving and how hungry you are, divide the rice porridge across 2 - 4 plates, with some of the coconut milk, a handful of sweet potato chips and toss some roughly crushed unsalted pistachios on top.
Notes
I don't like reheated porridge, but maybe you do. I'm sure the sauce and porridge will keep for a day.
I recommend frying up a whole sweet potato because odds are you'll eat half of the sweet potato chips before you're ready to serve.