Bánh tét ngũ sắc, five-color sticky rice cake

Ingredients

• 600 g of pre-cooked mung beans
• One ripe gac fruit
• 4 cups of sticky rice
• 1/2 cup of white rice alcohol
• Banana leaves
• 1 bunch of pandan leaves
• 1 bunch of purple rice plant (cẩm) leaves
• Food colorings: green, pink, orange, and yellow
• 5 teaspoons of salt
• 1 ripe pineapple (for its juice)
• cling film

Wash the rice and soak it in cold water for a few hours, adding pineapple juice. Drain the rice and divide it into 4 portions.

Soak the mung beans, rinse them, cover them with just enough water with 1 teaspoon of salt, and cook them over medium heat, skimming off any foam that forms.

Once the water is almost absorbed, turn off the heat, add the yellow food coloring, and stir until it is completely dissolved. Let it cool, then crush it finely.

Open the gac, place the pulp in a bowl with the alcohol and let it sit for 30 minutes. Mash it, remove the seeds, add a little orange food coloring and salt, and mix with 1 liter of rice.

Separate the pandan and cam leaves and extract their juice. Strengthen the pandan with green leaves and the cam with pink leaves, then mix each with 1 liter of rice and 1 teaspoon of salt.

In a skillet, sauté each rice with its juice until it becomes sticky and the liquid is absorbed.

Place 40 cm strips of banana leaf on the work surface, with the shiny side facing down, and cover them with cling film.

Arrange the white rice, jasmine rice, pandan rice, gac rice, and mung bean puree in separate piles. Roll each pile tightly and secure with toothpicks.

Boil for 4 to 5 hours. Drain, let cool, and hang to dry in a cool place: it will keep for a few days.