Kerala's contribution to the steamed-dumpling family folds instead of pleating. A thin layer of rice dough is spread onto a piece of banana leaf with wet fingers, the sweet coconut filling goes on one half, and the leaf is folded over and steamed.
The leaf is not packaging. It is the ingredient. As the parcel steams, the banana leaf gives up a faint green scent that gets into the rice, and nothing else does the same job. Warm the leaf briefly over a flame before you use it, or it will split along the fold.
Open them at the table rather than in the kitchen. That first breath of steam is half the pleasure.
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