Lontong
Encyclopedia
Rice
Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...
wrapped inside banana leaf
Banana leaf
Banana leaf is the leaf of the Banana plant. It is used for various functions, such as for decorative elements, wrappings, plate mat, and employed in cooking method....
that is then cut into small cakes as staple food replacement of steamed rice. The smaller size of lontong filled with vegetables (carrot
Carrot
The carrot is a root vegetable, usually orange in colour, though purple, red, white, and yellow varieties exist. It has a crisp texture when fresh...
, common bean
Common bean
Phaseolus vulgaris, the common bean, is an herbaceous annual plant domesticated independently in ancient Mesoamerica and the Andes, and now grown worldwide for its edible bean, popular both dry and as a green bean. The leaf is occasionally used as a leaf vegetable, and the straw is used for fodder...
and potato
Potato
The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family . The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species...
) sometimes also filled with meat, are eaten as snack.
Popular in Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
and Malaysia, the dish is usually served cold or at room temperature with sauce-based dishes such as gado-gado
Gado-gado
Gado-gado , also called Lotek for its cooked version - differed from lotek atah or karedok for its fresh and raw version of the vegetable covered with peanut sauce and pecel is an Indonesian dish comprising a vegetable salad served with a peanut sauce dressing...
and salads, although it can be eaten as an accompaniment to other dishes such as Satay
Satay
Satay , or sate, is a dish of marinated, skewered and grilled meat, served with a sauce. Satay may consist of diced or sliced chicken, goat, mutton, beef, pork, fish, other meats, or tofu; the more authentic version uses skewers from the midrib of the coconut palm frond, although bamboo skewers are...
and curries. It is also used in Soto
Soto (food)
Soto, sroto, tauto or coto is a common dish, found in many regional variations of Indonesian cuisine. It is a traditional soup mainly composed of broth, meat and vegetables. There is no clear definition of what makes a soto, but normally many traditional soups are called soto, whereas foreign and...
as an alternative to vermicelli noodles.
Lontong is traditionally made by boiling the rice until it is partially cooked and packing it tightly into a rolled-up banana leaf. The leaf is secured and cooked in boiling water for about 90 minutes. Once the compacted rice has cooled, it can be cut up into bite-sized pieces.
Alternative ways of cooking lontong include placing uncooked rice into a muslin bag then letting the water seep in and cause the rice to form a solid mass (Ingram, 2003).