Angkak

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A reddish fermented rice product made by culturing rice with the mold Monascus, used in Asian cooking as a food coloring and flavoring
2. Red yeast rice, a traditional East Asian ingredient produced by fermenting rice with Monascus purpureus and valued for its color
3. A rice-based food colorant created through mold fermentation, common in Chinese and Southeast Asian cuisine and traditional medicine

Etymology: Angkak is a Malay and Indonesian word, and its literal sense is "red yeast rice," the same thing it names. The rice is grown with the mold "Monascus purpureus," which turns the grains a deep red and produces compounds that have been used in Chinese cooking and medicine for centuries. Its name follows the same path as the food: the word passed into Malay from Hokkien Chinese, where the mold was called "ang-khak" (红曲, literally "red yeast"), and Malay speakers in the Malay Archipelago kept the form and its meaning. The word has also reached English through food and science writing, mostly as a loanword for the product and sometimes for its active compound, monacolin K, which is chemically the same molecule as the cholesterol-lowering drug lovastatin. That connection is why the rice has drawn attention from researchers far outside the kitchen.