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Lemper Ayam (Coconut Flavored Sticky Rice with Spiced Chicken Filling) is one of my favorite Indonesian snacks. The sticky rice is mixed in coconut milk and kaffir lime and bay leaves while the chicken filling is cooked with coconut milk and some spices making lemper very flavorful. In Indonesia, you can find lemper in any stores or bakeries that sell snacks or cakes. It is quite popular in Indonesia. My mom used to buy lemper in the market for me to snack on. I sometimes bought them in school cafeteria for my lunch. You can serve lemper as snack or appetizer.

To make lemper, you must use sweet or glutinous rice. You cannot use regular rice because it is not sticky and thus, it will not be able to hold it together. It takes time to make lemper if you wrap it individually in banana leaves. However, there is a shortcut using plastic wrap. My fellow food bloggers also have another shortcut to form it in a big batch and cut it to your preferred size rather than to form it individually, so this is the fastest and easiest way to make it. I explain all the shortcuts in the recipe. The banana leaves provide additional flavor to the rice but it is not necessary since the sticky rice itself has already had enough flavor from the coconut milk and the leaves. So, go ahead and take the shortcut if you prefer.

This recipe makes at least 10 lemper depending on the individual size of lemper you make. It should be enough to serve 3-4 people.

Ingredients:

• For the rice: 500 gram sweet or glutinous rice. Do not use regular rice because it will not work. You can find sweet or glutinous rice in Asian store.
• For the rice: banana leaves to cover the steamer
• For the rice: 325 ml coconut milk
• For the rice: 4 kaffir lime leaves. If you cannot find it, substitute with lime peel from 1 lime.
• For the rice: 4 bay leaves
• For the rice: 1 lemongrass, white part smashed with the back of the knife and green part discarded
• For the rice: 1/4 teaspoon salt or to taste
• For the filling: 1 small boneless skinless chicken breast
• For the filling: 4 small or 1 large size shallots, halved
• For the filling: 3 cloves of garlic, halved
• For the filling: 3 candlenuts, halved. You can substitute with macadamia nuts if you cannot find candlenuts in Asian stores.
• For the filling: 1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds
• For the filling: 1/4 teaspoon cumin powder
• For the filling: 2 tablespoons oil
• For the filling: 2 kaffir lime leaves. If you cannot find it, substitute with lime peel from 1 lime.
• For the filling: 2 bay leaves
• For the filling: 1 teaspoon concentrated tamarind
• For the filling: 125 ml coconut milk
• For the filling: 1/2 teaspoon salt or to taste
• For the filling: 1.5 tablespoons sugar or to taste
• For the filling: pinch of black pepper
• Optional: banana leaves to wrap lemper
• Optional: plastic wrap to form lemper if you use method 1 and wrap lemper if you don't use banana leaves

Methods:

1. Soak the sweet rice in water for at least 4 hours or overnight. Make sure the rice is submerged in water when it is soaked.
2. Once the rice has been soaked for 4 hours or overnight, drain the rice. Prepare your steamer by filling the bottom steamer with water.Cover the bottom steamer and heat it until the water comes to a boil. Line the steamer basket with banana leaves and place the rice on top of the banana leaves. Make sure the rice is on an even layer. Banana leaves are used to prevent the rice from sticking on the basket and thus, it would be easy to clean once done. Place the steamer basket on top, cover steamer basket, and cook the rice for 15 min.
3. While the rice is being steamed, put coconut milk, kaffir lime leaves, bay leaves, lemongrass, and salt into a pot. Heat it over medium heat. Once coconut milk has come to a boil, reduce the heat to low. Add the steamed rice into the pot. Stir the rice until it is coated with coconut milk. Cook the rice until all coconut milk has been absorbed by the rice. Taste the rice and add more salt if needed. Put the rice back on top of the banana leaves in the steamer basket. Steam it for 18-22 min or until the rice is fully cooked. Remove from the heat and discard lemongrass and the leaves. Keep the rice covered until ready to make lemper so that it doesn't become dry.
4. While the rice is being steamed, put water and chicken breast into a pot. Boil chicken until it is fully cooked. Drain and set it aside to cool down before shredding it. Shred the chicken to small pieces.
5. While waiting for the chicken to cool down, process shallots, garlic, candlenuts, coriander seeds, and cumin powder in a food processor. Pulse it until the spices become smooth paste. Add 2 tablespoons vegetable oil on a pan. Heat the oil over medium high heat. Add spice paste into the pan and saute it until it becomes fragrant and the paste becomes soft/cooked. Reduce the heat to medium. Add kaffir lime leaves, bay leaves, coconut milk, concentrated tamarind, salt, and sugar into the pan. Bring it to a boil. Add chicken and pepper into the pan. Stir it so that chicken is coated with coconut milk. Taste it and add salt, sugar, and pepper if needed. Cook the chicken until coconut milk is gone. Remove from the heat. Discard the leaves.
6. Method 1 to assemble lemper: If you don't have banana leaves, you can use plastic wrap. However, you won't be able to grill lemper which is okay. Grilling lemper in banana leave just adds banana leave flavor to the lemper. If you have sushi mat, you can use it to form lemper. Completely cover sushi mat with plastic wrap so that the rice will not stick to it. If you don't have sushi mat, you can just use plastic wrap. Fill a small bowl with water. This is to dip your fingers so that rice will not stick on your fingers. Place little bit of rice on top of the plastic covered sushi mat or plastic wrap if you don't have sushi mat. Make a rectangle shape rice. The width and length of the rice is dependent on your preferred size of lemper. Place filling on the center of the rice lengthwise. With the help of sushi mat or plastic wrap, Fold the rice on the side of the filling so that the filling is covered with rice. Make sure the end sides are also covered with the rice. You can use sushi mat or plastic wrap to press and form lemper so that It is tight. If you use banana leaves to wrap lemper, cut banana leave to at least 2 times bigger than the total width of lemper. Place formed lemper on banana leave. Completely cover with banana leave and using stapler, staple the end so that it is completely enclosed inside banana leave. If you don't use banana leave, you can place formed lemper on plastic wrap. Wrap lemper in plastic wrap and twist the end like candy wrapper so that lemper is completely enclosed inside plastic wrap. If you use banana leave, you can grill lemper on a grill, oven, or on a pan. Grill it until banana leave becomes brown. Serve lemper right away. Lemper can be stored in the fridge but the rice will be hard after couple days. To soften it, you can steam it again.
7. Method 2 to assemble lemper: This is the fastest way to make lemper. Line baking dish (8x8) with plastic wrap. Make sure you have plastic wrap overhang on each side of the baking dish so that you can remove lemper easily from baking dish. Spread half of the rice on the baking dish. Make sure it is even. I use plastic spoon that comes with rice cooker so that the rice doesn't stick on the spoon. You can coat your spoon with vegetable oil if you don't own plastic spoon. Place the filling on top of the rice. Spread it so that it is even. Spread the other half of the rice on top of the filling. Make sure it is even. Once done, pull out the plastic wrap overhang to get lemper out from the baking dish. Place it on top of cutting board. Coat a knife with vegetable oil. Cut the lemper according to your preferred size. You can serve it right away. If not, wrap each lemper in plastic wrap so that it doesn't get dry. You can store it in the fridge but it will get dry after couple days. If so, remove from plastic wrap and steam lemper in a steamer.

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