The Serumpun Codex · Salt, fats, sugars and honey
Engkabang
The fat pressed from the illipe nut, solid at room temperature and melting like cocoa butter.
The entry
- Name
- Engkabang
- Other names
- Engkabang jantong (Iban); illipe butter; kawang, tengkawang
- Scientific name
- Rubroshorea macrophylla (de Vriese) P.S.Ashton & J.Heck., formerly Shorea macrophylla; family Dipterocarpaceae
- What it is
- The fat pressed from the illipe nut, solid at room temperature and melting like cocoa butter.
- Knowledge from
- The Iban, the main gatherers, who make the butter; Malays and Kedayans use it too.
- Shared with Serumpun by
- Professor Gerard Bodeker, who told its story at the launch in Kuala Lumpur, July 2025.
- How it is used
- Illipe nuts gathered from the riverbanks are dried in the sun or over smoke, pressed in a wooden pitan and the oil set in bamboo tubes. Eaten with rice.
- In the French Borneo kitchen
- Replaces dairy throughout: it emulsifies, gives body and holds a sauce. The confit fat for the Empurau, Course I, River, at Osaka.
- Season and place
- Endemic to Borneo; in Sarawak mostly along the Rajang and in the north-west, west of the Lupar. Fruits irregularly, in mast years four or more years apart; ripe January to February.
- Conservation status
- Least Concern, IUCN Red List (2019 assessment). A protected plant under Sarawak's Wild Life Protection Ordinance 1998.
- Codex Alimentarius
- CXS 19-1981, edible fats and oils not covered by individual standards
- Medicinal knowledge
- Held privately by the community
- Consent
- Given, recorded by CHASS, 30 October 2026
Sources
- The Living Pantry, James Won
- Borneo Post, 2020
- UNIMAS
- Chung et al., 2022
- Rubroshorea macrophylla, citing the IUCN Red List
- Sarawak Wild Life Protection Ordinance
Added to the Codex on 1 November 2026. Sources last checked on 30 October 2026. This ingredient is also told in James Won's words in The Living Pantry.
Anyone may cook with this knowledge, commercially too, provided the community it comes from is credited by name. To correct or withdraw this entry, write to the Custodian at connect@chefjameswon.com.
How to cite this entry
Serumpun Sarawak (2026) ‘Engkabang’, The Serumpun Codex, ed. James Won. Available at: https://www.chefjameswon.com/serumpun/codex/engkabang/ (sources checked 30 October 2026).
Quote any entry with this citation, and name the community whose knowledge it is.