Nom Ple Ay, or sweet glutinous rice dumplings, is a Khmer dessert that is easy to make. We just need a few ingredients and a little time to make them. Sina, 24, who sells Khmer desserts at the Olympic Market, explained the steps of making your own sweet glutinous rice dumplings.

“We need to have all the ingredients, which include sticky rice powder, solid palm sugar, coconut and water,” said Sina.

She explained that after we have the ingredients, we start by mixing the sticky rice powder with water. While mixing the two ingredients, we can save time by putting water on the pot to boil.

Sina said that the mixing part is quite difficult, so we need to be careful because the taste of the dumplings will depend on perfect mixing.

“We need to measure the amount of water while mixing it, because if it is too hard or soft it will not make for good dumplings. So you should try to balance the water and sticky rice powder.”

After we have finished mixing, we can cut the solid palm sugar into small pieces and then add it to the sticky rice power. Those pieces should not be bigger than a fingertip.

“We have to put the pieces of sugar in the mixed powder by first putting a small amount of mixed powder into a plate shape on your hand, and then putting the sugar in the middle. Then wrap it and make it round. Then it will look like a small ball.”

Sina added that we need to make sure that the wrap is not bigger than a thumb. After that we put those small round pieces into the boiled water, we can wait until they are cooked.

To prevent the dumplings from sticking, Sina has one extra step.

“After they are cooked, we can take them out from the boiled water and put it into normal or cold water before putting them onto the plate.”

We can also put some coconut slices on them to make them even tastier. Then the Nom Ple Ay is ready for you to enjoy.