Kralan

Glutinous rice, beans and coconut milk roasted inside a bamboo tube over coals.

Illustration inspired by a roadside kralan stand near Battambang.

Dish details
Khmer name	ក្រឡាន
Other names	Sticky rice in bamboo
Dish types	Snack; Rice dish
Subjects	Food & Foodways; Celebrations & Life Passages; History & Remembrance; Work & Livelihoods
Related dishes	Num Ansom Chek

Kralan (ក្រឡាន) is glutinous rice, beans and coconut milk roasted inside a bamboo tube over coals. It has been made for generations in Siem Reap province and elsewhere in Cambodia, and it is sold as a roadside food and provincial specialty.

Cultural context

Kralan is often made and eaten at Chinese New Year and Khmer New Year. In Kchas commune, Soth Nikum district, Siem Reap, it is made all year and in larger amounts for Khmer New Year and Pchum Ben. Kralan is a common offering to monks on their alms rounds and at festivals and celebrations. Some people buy it as an offering for monks at Pchum Ben, when some monks prefer it to other food.

During the harvest season, Cambodian Buddhists in the Angkor region hold a night rite called plang kralan. While the bamboo tubes grill, villagers lie side by side to form a human bridge, and monks walk across it. The rite is believed to bring merit and an abundant harvest.

The bamboo tube makes kralan a food for the road. Travelers buy it from roadside sellers on long drives, and it is eaten on buses. The Cambodian Cookbook ties it to pilgrimage, the rice-harvest months and the weeks before the water festival, as food that travels in a bag for a day's walk.

Ingredients and preparation

Glutinous rice is roasted in bamboo tubes with black-eyed peas or other beans, coconut milk, grated coconut and palm sugar, over a fire for about 90 minutes. Recipes vary in the beans. Makers use soybeans, red beans, black beans or small red beans such as azuki. Some versions add sesame. One guide names the rice as the Angkor Damneorb variety.

Makers in Siem Reap cut domestic bamboo into pieces about 30 centimeters (12 inches) long. They do not use wild bamboo, which can give the rice a strange taste. The best bamboo grows in villages, because it has long tubes, holds much water and is white inside. The thin-walled bamboo used is known as russey kralan. Each tube is cut at the joints so it has one open end, then washed.

The sticky rice is soaked for two hours, with the soybeans in the Ask a Cambodian method, then washed and mixed with a little salt and sugar. The Siem Reap recipe uses one kilogram (about 2.2 pounds) of sticky rice with sugar, soybeans, a spoonful of salt and coconut milk, and no MSG. The filling is packed tight, because loose packing makes the kralan muddy. The open end is then sealed with coconut husk or banana leaves, also packed tight.

The tubes are cooked over coals laid in a long line, on a shelf that holds tubes on both sides of the fire, so every side faces the heat. In Siem Reap the tubes stand upright on both sides of a long stove for about an hour and a half. Ask a Cambodian gives 35 to 50 minutes over a fire that is not too strong. Other accounts give about an hour over charcoal, with the tubes turned constantly over hot coals rather than open flames. The heat steams the rice, and the coconut milk and sugar caramelize against the bamboo.

After roasting, the tubes are cooled and the burned outer layer is removed. The soft inner part stays on to hold the rice. Finished kralan is kept warm over the long stove. The bamboo is cracked lengthwise with a heavy knife, and the rice comes out as a log inside a thin white membrane. Kralan made with coconut milk does not keep beyond two or three days.

History and origins

Archaeological evidence shows that Mon-Khmer peoples cooked rice in bamboo in ancient times. In the Khmer Empire kralan served as military rations. A legend holds that the soldiers of the Angkor kings carried it as food for their journeys. The Cambodian Cookbook links the dish to the Chenla era, about 550 to 802.

The historian Michel Tranet concluded that the Thai method of roasting sticky rice in bamboo began with the Khmer people of Surin, an area of Thailand that was once part of the Khmer Empire. Sticky rice in bamboo is also part of Burmese, Lao, Thai, Vietnamese and Assamese cooking, and in Thai and Lao it is called khao lam. Kralan is a traditional food of some ethnic groups in Laos and northwestern Vietnam.

The traditional way to cook kralan was to bury it underground. Because that takes time, most people now cook it over a fire.

Regional and household variations

Kralan is known throughout Cambodia, and Cambodians debate which village makes the best. Thma Krae village in Kratie Province and Samrong Khnong village in Battambang Province are well known for it. Some prefer the rich sweetness of kralan from around Battambang and Banteay Meanchey, especially Samrong Khnong. Others prefer the subtle flavor and texture of Thma Krae kralan. Ask a Cambodian names Kratie kralan the most delicious. Thma Krae, on National Road 7, has many roadside stalls and a large local kralan trade. Kralan is sold at roadside stalls along the Mekong between Kampong Cham and Kratie, where vendors sell shorter, sweeter batches to bus passengers by mid-morning.

Kralan is made in several provinces, and Siem Reap makers say their own version has a taste of its own. Kralan is especially popular in the Siem Reap region. It is popular in Battambang because the special rice often comes from fields there. After Battambang became the first Cambodian city named a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy, Khmer Times counted Kralan Battambang among the city's most popular dishes and a part of daily life there.

Kralan is easier to find in the provinces than in Phnom Penh. Some sellers bring it from the provinces to Phnom Penh, where it costs more. Makers differ on sugar. Ben Sam, a seller near Siem Reap, uses white sugar and holds that it gives a better flavor than palm sugar. She credits the care she takes with the coconut milk for the character of her kralan.

Named kinds include kralan damneorb, with white glutinous rice, black-eyed peas and coconut milk, and kralan damneorb khmao, made with black glutinous rice, which is deep purple and nuttier. Kralan trav adds small pieces of taro root, and kralan chek may add ripe banana. Where fresh bamboo is not at hand, dried bamboo craft canes can be used after a full day of soaking, or the rice can be steamed in banana-leaf packets.

Makers and sellers

Kralan has grown into a market that serves both Cambodians and foreign visitors. Phim Heav had been making it for five years in Kchas commune, Siem Reap, where makers buy domestic bamboo from Kampong Cham province when local bamboo does not grow fast enough.

At least 30 vendors sell kralan on both sides of the road at Kilometer 28 on National Highway 6, just before Siem Reap. Ben Sam has sold kralan there for more than 20 years. She says villagers learn the craft from one another, though some take shortcuts. The chef Luu Meng tried a different vendor each time he passed, and Ben Sam's was his favorite. She sells about 200 tubes a day in several lengths, from thin small tubes to large ones. Each day she uses 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of rice, 17 coconuts, a little sea salt and white sugar. She cooks the coconut milk with the rice and adds more as she fills the bamboo. She gathers the bamboo in Kralanh village, about 52 kilometers (32 miles) west-northwest of Siem Reap. The family starts work at 3 a.m. and finishes around 5 p.m. Long rains slow business, and the roadside is a dangerous place to work.

Preparations and recipes

• Ask a Cambodian

  Soaked sticky rice and soybeans packed into a village bamboo tube, sealed and roasted beside a line of coals.(partial instructions)

References