Central kitchen: Raja Muhammad Asyraf roasting lemang in Kampung Skudai Kiri.
Johorean uses knowledge gained from childhood
JOHOR BARU: The crackling fire, the smoky aroma of coconut milk-infused glutinous rice and the careful turning of bamboo tubes – these were the sights and smells that shaped Raja Muhammad Asyraf Raja Sulaiman’s childhood.
Watching his father roast lemang on the fire, the 24-year-old absorbed the craft through years of quiet observation.
Today, he carries on the tradition, keeping alive a skill passed down through his group of childhood friends, who have been making and selling lemang for the past four years.
“My father and his friends made and sold lemang during Ramadan and Hari Raya Aidilfitri since 2009. So since I was seven I have been helping him.
“Each year as I grew a little older, my father and his friends would give me more responsibility, including turning the bamboo tubes to show me how lemang is cooked,” he added.
Speaking at his stall in Kampung Skudai Kiri here, Raja Muhammad Asyraf said equipped with the knowledge of making lemang, he roped in his childhood friends, about 12 of them, to start selling the traditional rice dish right after the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Each one of us has different roles such as marketing, which includes taking online and phone orders, filling the bamboo tubes with glutinous rice, cooking lemang and packing it.
“For this year’s Ramadan, we started selling lemang from the second week of the fasting month. During that period, we sold an average of 30 to 60 tubes per day.
“However, now with Hari Raya Aidilfitri just a few days away, we are making about 150 lemang tubes a day to meet demand coming from walk-in customers as well as pre-orders,” he said.
Raja Muhammad Asyraf added that he and his friends had begun preparing for the selling of lemang for this year’s Ramadan since late 2024.
He said the work included ordering bamboo from suppliers as well as collecting wood from factories to make the fire for cooking.
Raja Muhammad Asyraf said they cooked lemang on makeshift fire pits which he had created using oil drums that he had bought from a junkyard.
“I designed and created the pits on my own. By using these pits to cook lemang, I am able to halve the cooking time from four hours to just two.
“I have about 10 of these pits, and each can cook about 15 lemang at one time, which is good as we need to meet our customers’ orders fast,” he added.
Raja Muhammad Asyraf and his friends will operate round the clock until the 15th day of Aidilfitri.
“The stall at Kampung Skudai Kiri here is also our central kitchen, where we will send 50 lemang each to our two other stalls located at Persiaran Tanjung Kempas and Desa Rahmat,” he said
Their lemang is priced at RM20 to RM22 per tube depending on the size.
“Lemang is made using simple things like glutinous rice, coconut milk, salt, banana leaves and bamboo tubes. The difficult part is controlling the intensity of the flames and heat to make sure our products end up nice and tasty,” he said.
Raja Muhammad Asyraf said some of his customers prefer eating overcooked lemang while some like it soft but one thing is for sure, it is a must for Hari Raya Aidilfitri.
