Rice Rolls with chicken Filling ( Lemper ) Indonesian recipes

Rice Rolls with chicken Filling ( Lemper ) Indonesian recipes

Ingredients :

500g (1lb) glutinous rice

2 cups water

1 cup thick coconut milk

250g (8oz) finely chopped chicken

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon ground black pepper

2 tablespoons oil

2 cloves garlic, crushed

2 curry leaves

2 teaspoons ground coriander

1 teaspoon ground cumin

½ teaspoon ground turmeric

½ teaspoon dried shrimp paste (trasi)

squeeze of lemon juice

squares of banana leaf or aluminium foil

How To Make:

Wash rice and drain. Put into saucepan with water and bring to the boil. then turn heat very low, cover pan tightly and steam for 15 minutes.

Mix ¾ cup of the coconut milk with ½ cup of water in a small saucepan and heat without boiling. Add to rice, stir gently with a fork, cover and steam for 5-10 minutes until coconut milk is absorbed. Leave to cool.

Season chicken with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a wok or medium sized saucepan, and fry the garlic and curry leaves for 1 minute.

Add ground spices and trasi and fry, stirring, for a minute longer, crushing the trasi with a spoon. Add the chicken and fry until the colour changes and it no longer looks raw.

Add reserved ¼ cup coconut milk and simmer uncovered on a low heat until well cooked and quite dry.

Add lemon juice to taste, check seasoning and add more slat and pepper if required. Cool.

Take a large tablespoon of rice and flatten on a piece of banana leaf till 12mm (½ inch) thick.

Put a good teaspoonful of rice of the filling in the middle and mould the rice around it into a cylindrical shape.

Roll up in the banana leaf and secure with wooden toothpicks, or roll in the foil to make a neat parcel.

These parcels can be heated over a barbeque or steamed for 15 minutes, then allowed to cool again.