The Differences Between an Online Tapai Recipe and an Current Tapai Recipe

Tapai has another 2 names depends on the name given from the country. The first one will be “tape” which is normally called in Indonesia and as “peuyeum” from Sundanese language. The place of origin is Nusantara and the region or states of origin are Indonesia and Malaysia. Plus the creator is Malay ethnic. Tapai consider as a type of alcoholic paste. Tapai is popular throughout East- and Southeast Asia.  It is a sweet or sour alcoholic paste and can be used directly as a food or in traditional recipes. The ingredients normally used to make tapai are cassava, white rice, or glutinous rice. To produce tapai, fermentation is required. Without fermentation, there will be the absence of sourness and alcoholic taste. Fermentation is performed by a variety of moulds including Aspergillus oryzae, Rhizopus oryzae, Amylomyces rouxii or Mucor species, and yeasts including Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and Saccharomycopsis fibuliger, Endomycopsis burtonii and others, along with bacteria. Tapai usually wrapped with various kind of plant leaves. For examples, banana leaf, taro leaf and daun getah. On the other hand, Tapai can be used to make alcoholic beverages also.

Current Tapai Recipe by Chef Fadzly 

TAPAI PULUT / SWEET FERMENTED GLUTINOUS RICE

Ingredients: 

1 kg Glutinous Rice
20g Ragi / Tapai Yeast 
4 tbs Sugar
1 L Water 

Method:

1. rinse the glutinous rice and soak it for a while to soften.  soak for about an hour
2. cook the glutinous rice in a rice cooker. there’s really no need to steam it. ratio of water to rice is 1:1 when the rice is cooked, leave it to cool down completely

 3. for 1kg of rice, you only need to use 20g of ragi/ yeast cakecrumble/crush it into powder

 4. scatter half of the yeast powder in a flat-bottomed bowl scoop cooled glutinous rice into the bowl, on top of the yeast powder scatter the rest of the powder onto the glutinous rice taking care not to break the rice grains, mix both the rice and the yeast powder evenly scoop the rice mixture into a container big enough to hold it, or into small individual containers

5. leave the rice to ferment for at least 2-3 days

6. final product 

7. portioning

Online Tapai Recipe

Tapai Pulut (Fermented Glutinous Rice)

By: Roz@HomeKreation
Source: from her beloved mother 
INGREDIENTS:
1. 2 cups Glutinous Rice
2. 1-2 pc Ragi / Tapai Yeast - ground
3. 1 cup Water

METHOD:
1. Wash and soak glutinous rice for 4-5 hours.
Steam until soft. Cool completely. 
2. Mix the glutinous rice with sugar & yeast.
Sprinkle with water to prevent lumps and sticky.
3. Shape into small balls & place in a container or wrap individually in banana leaves. 
4. Wrap with thick cloth & keep in a dark place for 3-4 days.
5. Serve with vanilla ice-cream or by itself.

Comparison Between an Online Tapai Recipe and an Current Tapai Recipe 

	Current Tapai Recipe by Chef Fadzly Che Omar	Online Tapai Recipe by AlongRoz@HomeKreation
Culture	Malay culture cuisine based	Malay culture cuisine based
Region	Kuching, Sarawak	(Unknown)
Skills level	Industrial and institutional level	Home cook
Availability of ingredients	1 kg Glutinous Rice 20g  Ragi / Tapai Yeast 4 tbs Sugar 1L Water	2 cups Glutinous Rice  1-2 pc Ragi / Tapai Yeast - ground  1 cup Water  Banana leaves
Budget	RM5.00 +/-	Not stated
Time constraint	Soak for one hour and ferment for 2-3 days	Soak for 4-5 hours and ferment for 3-4days

Apparently, they are sharing the same culture due to their race and religion. I know Chef Fadzly from my kitchen class, he was my lecturer before and now he is working in the food industry. Plus he cooks very well and he is from East Malaysia. Unfortunately I can’t retain personal information from AlongRoz from her blog. There are huge different on both of theirs experience while one of them is a working chef and another is home cook and the content of their food knowledge on culinary.

As you can see, the measurements used by a chef and a home cook are different. Which the chef is using the accurate amount of each of every ingredients measured with the proper kitchen measuring equipment and utensil to produce the consistent product and to have standard recipe. This will avoid any subjective measurements due to different types of equipment and utensil use. Based on Chef Fadzly, the purpose to have sugar in the recipe is to act as the food for the yeast during the fermentation and he also says that to usage of plastic container is more hygienic compare to banana leaves. The rice don’t have to be soaked for a long time because at the end the has to be cooked and the process of fermentation is out when there is zero content of sugar, says Chef Fadzly.