Chicken Lemper

Tasty savoury snack chicken wrapped in sticky glutinuous rice - very famous in Indonesia :)
Similar to pulut panggang (lemper udang), but different in filling and this one is steamed instead of grilled

Traditionally individually wrapped in banana leaf but too lazy to do that, so I just laid the leaf at the bottom and top part and just cut before serving

Yum yum...the sweetness from the chicken combined with the salty sticky rice...
Very addictive, one definitely is far from enough :)

What you need:

For the rice:
1kg glutinuous rice - soaked overnight
400ml coconut milk (Kara)
350ml water
3 bay leaves

For the filling:
600g chicken breasts
7 cloves of garlic
5 shallots

1 thumb size  kaemferia galanga (in Indonesian: kencur)

2 bay leaves
3tbsp chicken stock mixed with coconut milk (Kara) to make 100ml

salt, pepper, sugar, 1/2 tsp ground coriander

a little oil

To do the rice...

1. Steam the soaked rice til half cooked (approx 45mins)
2. Off heat, mix rice with mixture of coconut milk and water - stir till well incorporated
3. Steam again for 1 hour with bay leaves embedded in the rice
4. Let cool

To do the filling...

1. Boil a pot of water with the chicken, bring to boil, discard the residue, simmer approximately 1 hour til chicken softened, after that scoop out the chicken from the stock and let cool
2. After cooled, shred the chicken
3. Chop garlic, shallots and kencur and then blend til forms smooth paste
4. Heat a little oil in a pan, and sautee the paste until fragrant
5. Add in shredded chicken, and the coconut milk mixture
6. Add in salt, pepper, sugar and coriander, mix well
7. If it's too dry, you may add a little oil and keep stirring. Test the taste. Add seasoning according to your preference. The taste for this filling is a little on the sweet side

To assemble:

• Lay a square pan with banana leaf, spread a layer of rice, leave it to cool completely and then spread chicken filling over rice, and top with another layer of rice
• Cover the top with banana leaf, let cool
• Cut using plastic knife to avoid te rice sticking on the knife (or you may use steel knife wrapped in plastic)

I'm submitting this traditional snack to Aspiring Bakers #12 Traditional Kueh hosted by Small Small Baker