Khao Lam Thai

Sticky rice mixed with black beans and sweet coconut cream, packed into bamboo tubes and roasted over coals until the rice steams into a fragrant, custardy cylinder. Peeled from its charred bamboo, it is a beloved Thai roadside snack, especially in the north and northeast.

Khao lam is the sticky-rice-in-bamboo snack of Thailand and mainland Southeast Asia — glutinous rice, coconut milk and beans packed into a bamboo tube and roasted over fire until set. The bamboo both cooks and serves it.

Peel back the bamboo and the rice comes away in a soft, sticky log, fragrant with smoke and coconut. It's gently sweet and creamy, the black beans adding earthy bites, with a faint toasty edge where the rice kissed the bamboo's inner skin.

Sealed bamboo turns the tube into a steam oven: coconut cream and the rice's own moisture cook the grains in their own vapor over coals, while the bamboo's inner membrane lends a subtle toasted aroma.

Variations

Black or white glutinous rice, with taro or coconut custard center, with red beans, savory versions

On the Palate

Where Khao Lam Thai sits in the Thai flavor cloud

Ingredients

Serves 6

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How it's made

8 steps · 8 hours

1
480 min
Soak glutinous rice and black beans separately for several hours.
2
5 min
Mix the drained rice and beans with sugar and a little salt.
3
8 min
Spoon the mixture loosely into clean bamboo tubes.
4
3 min
Pour sweetened coconut cream into each tube to cover the rice.
Watch out
Pour the coconut cream in until it just covers the rice — too little and the top grains dry out, too much and it boils over the plug.
5
2 min
Plug the tube openings with banana leaf or coconut husk.
6
90 min
Roast the tubes over charcoal, turning, until the rice is cooked.
Watch out
Keep turning the tubes over the coals until the outer bamboo is charred and dry — that's the sign the steam inside has cooked the rice through.
7
30 min
Let the tubes cool, then peel away the outer charred bamboo.
Watch out
Let the tubes cool before peeling — hot bamboo tears and takes the rice with it, cool bamboo strips away in clean sheets.
8
2 min
Slice or serve the fragrant rice cylinders whole.