Lontong

Lontong

A traditional way of serving lontong
Course	Main course
Place of origin	Indonesia
Region or state	Nationwide in Indonesia and also in Malaysia and Singapore
Created by	Indonesian cuisine
Serving temperature	Room temperature
Main ingredients	compressed rice cooked in banana leaf

Lontong is a dish made of compressed rice cake in the form of a cylinder wrapped inside a banana leaf, commonly found in Indonesia; also in Malaysia and Singapore. The rice rolled inside banana leaf and boiled, then cut into small cakes as staple food replacement of steamed rice. The texture is similar to those of ketupat, with the difference that ketupat container was made from weaved janur (young coconut leaf) fronds, while lontong uses banana leaf instead.

It is commonly called nasi himpit (lit. "pressed rice") in Malaysia, despite actually having different method to create it.

Arem-arem is the smaller size of lontong filled with vegetables (carrot, common bean and potato) sometimes also filled with meat, are eaten as snack.

The dish is usually served cold or at room temperature with peanut sauce-based dishes such as gado-gado, karedok, ketoprak, other traditional salads, and satay. It can be eaten as an accompaniment to coconut milk-based soups, such as soto, gulai and curries. It is also used 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 with lidi semat, wooden needle made from the central rib of coconut leaf, and cooked in boiling water for about 90 minutes. Once the compacted rice has cooled, it can be cut up into bite-sized pieces. Outer parts of lontong usually have greenish color because of the chlorophyll left by banana leaf rub off on rice cake surface.