Lemper Ayam (Sticky Rice Rolls with Chicken)

Some Dutch party food arrives from the deep fryer with all the subtlety of a brass band. Lemper arrives quietly, wrapped in banana leaf, and still empties the platter first. I learned that at Indo-Dutch tables where the good things were never shouted about: satay browning at the edge of the garden, sambal in a small bowl, and these green parcels waiting under a cloth like letters.

But let me tell you a secret. Lemper is not a Dutch invention, and pretending otherwise would be bad manners before it became bad history. The name belongs to Java; ayam is the everyday Indonesian word for chicken. What made it Dutch, in the complicated postcolonial sense of that word, was the journey through the former Dutch East Indies, through rijsttafel, the rice table, repatriate kitchens after 1945, and the toko's, Indonesian-Dutch shops where half the Netherlands learned to buy banana leaves from the freezer.

The method has a lovely discipline. Ketan, glutinous rice, is cooked first by water and then by santen, coconut milk, so it turns glossy and holds together without becoming paste. The chicken filling must be seasoned bravely and cooked dry; if it is wet, the parcel sulks and opens. Banana leaf is not only wrapping paper. It lends a green, warm scent and tells the hand where the food begins.

Hou het altijd simpel, always keep it simple. Lemper has no strict Dutch calendar season; its season is the borrel, a drink-and-snack gathering, and the feast day when the kitchen needs food made before guests arrive. Soak the rice, cook the filling until it no longer weeps, roll firm little parcels, and let the steamer finish the work. Serve them before dinner or beside a rijsttafel. They are made for being unwrapped with fingers, which is often how scholarship should be eaten.