LEMPER AYAM and SEMAR MENDEM

 LEMPER AYAM RECIPE

(Cooking in the rice cooker)

Lemper and semar mendem are basically the same foods. Both are Indonesian favourite snacks made of glutinous rice (Ketan) and can be filled with chicken, fish mince, or abon (beef/chicken floss). My family loves to have the lemper or semar mendem with chicken mince filling. 

Lemper is wrapped in banana leaves, and semar mendem is wrapped in a thin omelette egg. Living in New Zealand means only sometimes finding banana leaves in every season. So, the omelette can solve the problem; still delicious and looks pretty on a serving plate. 

Cooking in the rice cooker:

Cooking ketan could be a tricky part. Use 2 cups of water for every cup of glutinous rice if you cook it in a saucepan, but I use a rice cooker with the same regulation and standard of cooking rice, and I use nigiri sushi mold to give a proper shape. 

Ingredients

• 500 gr Ketan (see above)
• Salt to taste
• 1 Lemongrass 
• 1 can (425 ml) coconut milk.
• 200 gr chicken mince.
• 1 large shallot or red onion. 
• 4 cloves garlic.
• 5 candlenuts
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 2 Tsp. coriander. (ground)
• A pinch of sugar 
• 3 kaffir lime leaves, stack them together to thinly slice lengthways.

Directions

• Put Ketan with 1/2 of the coconut milk, salt and lemongrass into the rice cooker and cook it like normal rice.

Stuffing: 

• Put shallots, garlic, candlenuts, coriander, pepper, sugar, and salt in a small blender.
• In the hot pan, heat the vegetable oil.
• Sauté the crushed spices until fragrant.
• Add the chicken mince.
• Pour the rest of 1/2 coconut milk into the pan.
• Add kaffir lime leaves. 
• Cook until all the coconut milk fully absorbed.
• Set aside.

Serving:

• Fill half of the nigiri sushi mould with ketan, spread the chicken stuffing, and then apply another half mould with ketan on top of the stuffing and press with the lid.
• Take the Ketan out of the mold and wrap in banana leaf. 
• Ready to serve.

SEMAR MENDEM

All ingredients, directions, and stuffing are the same as lemper ayam, but the serving is slightly different. Make a thin omelette to wrap the Ketan mould instead of banana leaves.

        

Enjoy the exotic Indonesian food !!