Gula melaka

Gula melaka (sucre de palmier de Malacca)

What it is

Despite the name it is not made from a sugar palm but from the coconut: a tapper climbs twice a day to slice the unopened flower spike and catch the sap, which is boiled down over a wood fire and poured into bamboo tubes to set. That wood fire is where the smoke comes from, and why two cylinders from two villages do not taste alike.

In the kitchen

Shave it rather than chop it — the cylinder is hard enough to skid under a knife — and melt the shavings with a splash of water and a pandan leaf into a syrup you can actually measure. A pinch of salt in that syrup is what makes it taste of caramel rather than merely of sugar.

Goes with

Coconut milk Pandan leaf Glutinous rice Banana Tapioca starch Salt

Same species

Coconut Desiccated coconut Coconut milk Coconut oil Coconut vinegar

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