The "Essential" Nasi Lemak

Nasi Lemak is the national dish of my country of birth.

It was also my Mum's favourite party spread.
If you have 10 guests or more and you are thinking of a buffet approach, Nasi Lemak never fails to
please. Except for the rice, everything else can be served at room temperature. Most of the dishes can
be made well in advance. This will help you avoid the last minute rush to get the food ready.
If cooked as it should be (not with luncheon meat!), it can compete with other popular international
fare. It can be plated the fine dining way (looks gorgeous), lined as a buffet or served cheaply but
deliciously as a banana leaf wrapped breakfast meal.
I have made it for various parties, including a group of South Africans who were simply 'wowed' by
the local experience.The ingredients are all local and cheap. What is cheap is not necessary inferior.
It is cheap because it is local, easily available and fresh to boot. This works well in my favor as it will
not burn a hole in my pocket.
There are two "lists" to a good nasi lemak party spread: the essentials and the extras.
Essentials: Remember the essentials that make Nasi Lemak, well, Nasi Lemak. "Nasi" means rice.
The rice must be good. "Lemak" as in the milky way of the coconut. And then, the sambal chili, fried
anchovies (ikan bilis), fried ikan kuning (photo), roasted peanuts, eggs and cucumber. When it
comes to the egg, only hard-boiled will do (more about this later).
Perhaps you can try to picture a seaside Malay village. A typical family with simple means will eat off
the sea and land. Coconut trees are aplenty. The ikan bilis (anchovies) and ikan kuning are cheap.

An 'essential' Nasi Lemak should include some seafood ingredients.

Get these essentials right and you are on your way to cooking satisfying NL at home.
Extras: Nasi Lemak can go beyond the essentials, and it has. With increased wealth, globalisation
and as with all evolving cuisine in cosmopolitan cities in Southeast Asia, the humble Nasi Lemak has
become Nasi Lemak extra, supreme or special.
Malays will add beef rendang, curry chicken, rempah fried chicken and chili sotong (the brown
cuttlefish, not squid). Nonyas added otah, pickles and fried tamarind (assam) prawns. In Singapore,
Chinese stalls have added a whole array of dishes. And the rather sacrilegious luncheon meat! Nasi
Lemak with pork just sounds wrong. Not that you can't have it that way if it pleases you.
Most of these extra dishes are still relatively cheap if bought and cooked locally. The good thing
about making these extras is that you can cater to your guests' preferences for fish, meat, veg etc. You
can leave it to them to decide what they prefer on their plate.
I am not going to blog every dish recipe here, especially the "extras." Recipes for curry
chicken, spiced fried chicken (rempah chicken) and beef rendang have already been blogged. We will
focus on the 'essentials' here.

The "Essential" Nasi Lemak Recipe

Nasi Lemak Sambal Chill
Without Sambal, there is no Nasi Lemak. And without a good one, your Nasi Lemak will be great
either.
This sambal, unlike Sambal Belachan is not a dipping sauce. As it is to be eaten with rice in more
generous portions, it should not be as chilli-intensed as other sambal varieties. Add more
shallots/onions and moderate the spiciness of from the types of chilies you are using. It should also
be sweeter, adding a contrast to the savoury coconut rice. A good Nasi Lemak Chili should be sweet
with some salty and sour undertones.
I have below a recipe for a more complete version but you can easily simplify it. I have made versions
where it was just chili paste, shallots, oil, salt and sugar. If your Nasi Lemak is a rich version, i.e. with
extras like curries, sayur lodeh or assam prawns, simplify the flavours in your sambal.
Ingredients (for 12 pax):
60 pieces of dried chilies, dehydrated and deseeded
20 pieces of shallots
2 large onions, sliced
3t of Gula Melaka
3t of sugar
2t of table salt
A bowl of oil (250 ml)
For the dried chili, I used the wrinkled long variety which is less spicy compared to the smoother
shorter ones. Soak the dried chili in hot water. When soft, snip into two and de-seed with a small
spoon or the tip of the scissors. Be kind to your fingers.
Blend the shallots coarsely.

Heat up the oil in the wok. I will normally use the leftover oil from frying the ikan bilis. Add the
blended onions, anchovy paste and sweat it for in low flame for 10 minutes. This releases the sugar in
the onion and also removes the sulphuric fumes.
Then add the chili paste and simmer for about 15 minutes more.
Towards the end, adjust the taste with more salt (if needed), sugar and tamarind. Add the large
onion slices and simmer for about 5 minutes. This adds texture to the sambal.
Another variation is to add fried ikan bills in. If you are doing this, fry it first and set aside. Use the
oil to make the sambal chilli and add the fried ikan bilis after the sambal is done. Remember that
ikan bills or belachan will add saltiness to your sambal chilli.
Serve it at room temperature.
As for ikan bilis and peanuts, just fry in low flame. Fry it in small batches if you are unsure or
cooking a certain type of ikan bilis for the first time.This should be a no-brainer.

The Coconut Rice

Now, let's come to the rice. Basmati wins hands down, at least for me. It is more expensive but
nothing wrong with paying a bit more for your guests. That said, my Mum has been using local rice
for as long as I can remember. Undoubtedly, steaming the rice (nasi kukus) is the way to go. My
Mum would normally use the rice cooker to do the rice. But having cooked for many parties now,
the kukus way is far better, ensuring fluffy rice and for large batches, the texture of the rice will be
consistent throughout.
I will first tell you how to use the electric rice cooker. You use a rice:water ratio of 1:1.1.
1.

If you are squeeze a fresh grated coconut yourself, use 1coconut to 1 kg of rice. Squeeze with a
cloth or using a strainer, and the first bowl is the "pure coconut milk" or "cream," as it is
often called. Then add some water to the coconut flesh and squeeze again. This is a second
pass and it is called the coconut "milk"- very confusing, I can understand.

2. You use the watery "milk" to cook the rice, along with 2 tsps of table salt and pandan leaves.
The volume of the watery milk used should be the same as the rice in volume.
3. Switch on your rice cooker. After the rice reaches the warming stage (the button will pop up),
add the cream and stir the rice. Close the lid pot, switch on to cook and when it goes to
'warm', leave it there for another 10 minutes or so.
4. Fluff up the rice and serve it hot.
Now, unless someone can enlighten me, I think there is a limit with what you can do with an electric
rice cooker. If you add in all the milk/cream right at the start, the oil in the coconut cream will
prevent the rice from cooking properly. To cook large quantities, it is not easy to ensure evenness on
texture and flavour throughout the batch of rice. Note that sufficient salt is important. If you use
coconut milk packs like Kara, note that the 200 ml pack contains the cream of one coconut. You can

try using just 50 ml of it and add water to it to cook the rice during the first stage. Then add the rest
later.
But the traditional way of steaming the rice is still best. Since I discovered the kukus way of cooking,
all my Nasi Lemak is now cooked that way. It is easier, I don't have to bother about water ratios, it is
easy to control the cooking process and the texture turns out perfect every time. I have explained in a
posthere on how to use the steaming method.

Fried Ikan Kuning or Nasi Lemak Fish: Start with the head...crunch!!

As for the fried ikan kuning, buy them all cleaned up from the wet market. A kilo can feed 6-8
people. Marinate for half an hour with some salt, tumeric powder and pepper. Keep in the fridge
before you cook.
How do you get the crispiness? For home cooking, and unless you are using a big wok with very hot
oil, the best is to double fry. Fry for about 5-8 minutes per batch. The oil must be hot enough and
you should hear a nice sizzling sound (when I get round to using a thermometer, I will tell you the
degree one day). Let it cool. Then just before you serve, fry again in high heat for about a minute. The
first run removes the moisture, which is the usual enemy of crispiness. The second fry in high flame
will do the job perfectly. Alternatively, find a way to dehydrate or dry up your fish. Before you
marinate, drain out the water and dry pat the fish. Then, adding the marinade ingredients of tumeric
powder, pepper and salt. This actually is almost equivalent to 'salting the fish', a popular technique
used to dehydrate meat (osmosis). Leave it in the fridge for a few hours, uncovered if possible. With
this, frying it once will do the job. But if all this is too much of a bother, just double fry.
Eggs: Hard boiled please. Don't omelet it. I know that this preference has to do with my Malaysian
roots. But have you seen how beautiful the two-tone color of a sliced hard boiled egg is? When you
bite into it, the texture moves from the gelatin white to the crumbly yoke. Mixed with coconut rice
and sambal chili, it is a perfect combi. Egg can be done in a variety of ways but cook it in a way which
suits the dish. Commercially, the convenience needed for cooking or the use of liquid egg may justify
a square piece of a one-colored miserable dark yellow thing. It can be a chore to peel the egg, but for
home cooking, leave the parts of the egg as they are in the way God has created them.
Ok, to make the 'perfect' hard boiled eggs, do this. Pour in the water into the pot. Add the eggs. Then
switch on the flame (or induction cooker). When it reaches boiling point, cover the pot and swith off
the flame and let it cook for another 15 minutes.
It is easier to peel the egg when it is warm. Only slice the egg (use a strong or sharp knife) when it has
cooled to ensure that the yolk is sliced smoothly. If you want to keep the yolk at the centre of the egg
for better presentation, stir the pot occasionally when the egg is cooking.
Oh well, that is saying a lot for the humble hard-boiled eggs. Just being fussy. I love them, esp in
Nasi Lemak.
Cucumber: Use the local variety, not the Jap ones. I don't bother about rubbing salt in. Cut off both
ends and peel. If you have a good peeler, it can be done very quickly. Then slice. YOu don;t need to
remove the seeds. You can quickly create lines by running the fork down the length.(Eh..why am I
telling you how to cut a cucumber?)
Ok, the "essential" Nasi Lemak is done: Coconut rice, fried ikan bilis, fried ikan kuning, peanuts, egg,
cucumber and sambal chili.
The next time you eat it, imagine the Malay kampung at the seaside..you sitting under the coconut

tree and enjoying your nasi lemak, the tree swaying with the sea breeze and coconuts dropping left
and right but missing you because you are indeed blessed, with this nostalgic song humming in the
background...