Lepet is made by steaming the ketan (sticky rice) until half cooked in coconut milk then mixing it with pandan leaf and salt until all of the coconut milk is absorbed into the sticky rice. Then the half-cooked coconut milk sticky rice is mixed further with grated coconut flesh and peanuts then wrapped inside janur (young yellowish coconut leaf) in a cylindrical shape and secured with strings made from coconut leaf fibers (or any kind of strings). The rice packages inside the coconut leaf are then steamed further until completely cooked. The most common filling is peanuts; however, other kinds of beans such as kidney beans, cowpeas, jack beans, or corn might also be used.[1]
Other than sticky rice, lepet can be made from corn as well, which is similar to tamale.[2]
In the Malay-inhabited regions of Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula and Singapore, it is known as lepat. Popular kinds include one made with ripe bananas and filled with palm sugar and grated coconut and wrapped inside a banana leaf (lepat pisang);[3] and one made from grated corn mixed with coconut and steamed wrapped in corn husks (lepat jagung).[4] Lepat from tapioca flour were commonplace during the food shortages of Japanese occupation in Malaya and Singapore.[5]
^Kratoska, Paul H. (2018). The Japanese occupation of Malaya and Singapore, 1941-45: a social and economic history (Second ed.). Singapore: NUS Press. pp. 267–8. ISBN978-9971-69-638-2.
