SAVOURS: Cooking in bamboo

LEMANG, a dish of glutinous rice and coconut milk cooked inside a hollow bamboo tube, is a must for the Malay community when there’s a festival or celebration. Families look forward to it as do visitors when they come to visit open house functions.
Making lemang is a lot of hot work and requires a keen, watchful eye on the rice-stuffed bamboo cooking over a slow, slow fire. The bamboo is first lined with banana leaf to prevent the sticky rice adhering to the sides of the bamboo. Anything can go wrong during the process. Not enough liquid, for instance, or rice that has not be pre-soaked long enough. Then the bamboo must be turned at intervals to ensure thorough cooking on all sides or you may end up with uncooked rice on one side and burnt rice on the other.As preparing lemang requires a big open space for the fire, most people don’t bother to make their own, preferring to purchase from lemang makers who set up stalls by the road from the day before Hari Raya and do a roaring business. You’d be able to spot these from a kilometre away by the smoke from the open fires as well as long lines of cars erratically parked at the roadside. Lemang is usually sold by per bamboo tube though in some stalls, it is available in shorter lengths. The bamboo is split into halves to get the lemang which is then sliced into round discs for serving and is scrumptious when eaten with rendang (a dry curry) or serunding (spicy meat floss). MORE ..
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Related article : Rahsia lemang menjadi
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What is Hari raya tanpa lemang? (lomang as in Negri's slang). Well, it is a compulsory dish for Hari raya no doubt. But for me, it is not lemang but rather it's ketupat. Ketupat is the real king, the real dish for the occassion!. Like what my son would say .. best giler!! Very obvious what! The one that people hang in their house or offices for decoration is 'decorative ketupat' and not lemang!! Ketupat is easier to prepare and make. We have many variations of the ketupat, ketupat satay, ketupat bawang, ketupat palas. (anymore that I dont know of?). Some people even go for the simpler version of ketupat i.e. the nasi himpit.
Anyway, my other half is a Rawaian from Batu Gajah, Perak. They have a similar kind to lemang, they called it kelamai. It is brownish in colour but I have not adventurous enough to try and taste it, even untill now (my mother-in-law must be cursing me.. tak guna punya menantu!).