Sweet Stall Treat · Steamed Rice Noodle Strings

Putu Mayam

Photo: ProjectManhattan / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0

It's eaten as a sweet, not a meal — the same rice-flour strands that look like noodles are piled onto a plate and finished with nothing more than grated coconut and a scoop of raw palm sugar.

Rice flour dough is pressed through a mold into thin steamed strands, piled onto a banana leaf or plate, and topped with grated coconut and coarse gula melaka (palm sugar), sold from Tamil sweet stalls around Little India.

Why it's made this way: The string-hopper format traveled with South Indian communities into Singapore, where it settled into Little India's sweet stalls as an everyday teatime treat rather than a special-occasion dish.