Ketupat Nasi ( Rice Dumplings )
Traditionally , the dumplings are served during special festive occasions . On Eid Ul Fitri and Eid al Adha . Both festives are signifinace to the Muslims . Eid Ul Fitri ( Aidil Fitri ) is celebrated after the end of the fasting month ( Ramadhan ) and the Eid Ul Adha ( Hari Raya Qurban ) celebrated two months after Eid Ul Fitri, is to commemorates God's ( Allah s.w .t ) forgiveness to Nabi Ibrahim a.s ( Abraham ) from his promise to sacrifice his son , Ishmael as commanded by Allah s.w.t .
During the celebrations , families and friends are served with special dishes and cuisines prepared by the house owner . There are Rendang , beef or chicken , variety of Satays with spicy peanut sauce and special cooked ' Rice ' . The Rice Dumplings is amongst them . It is rice packed in a woven coconut leaves and boiled into pressed rice cakes . These dumplings are served as condiments to satays , eaten with Johor Lontong or Lodeh or served with Rendang . The Dumpling pouch is hand woven, by using only the young coconut leaves . Cleaned rice is inserted through the end opening and the pouch is tightened. This is to avoid the rice seeds from falling through the untight weave . The half filled pouch is boiled for an hour or more, until the dumplings are ready or cooked.
 The coconut woven pouch used as casing for the rice dumplings. Basically there are two styles of the weaving pouches. One is called Ketupat Satay, which is slim and squarish while the other is Ketupat Bawang , which has more angular in design. ( As shown in pix above ). The weaving leaves are tightened to avoid the rice from slipping through its plait during the boiling process. |  The leaf of one end of the pouch is flipped open for the rice to be filled in. |
 The cleaned rice is filled to half the pouch. |  Once filled, the pouch is tightened and boiled for 1 - 2 hours. The boiled rice expanded and covered the whole pouch thus forming into smooth and compact texture. |
