I’ve always loved food. Thoughts of food can take up at least 70% of my brain space. Whenever I’m far from home, it is always nice to have some comfort food to beat the homesick feeling. There is always one food that I will whip up whenever the cravings kick in : Nasi Lemak (loosely translates to Fatty Rice). In this blog post, I will be sharing my SUPER Easy Nasi Lemak Recipe!
Nasi Lemak is the iconic food of Malaysia and also a common breakfast meal. You can hardly go wrong with a good pack of Nasi Lemak.
The basic Nasi Lemak consists of 6 important elements:
- Rice cooked in Coconut Milk (nasi)
- Fried peanuts (kacang)
- Fried dried anchovies (ikan bilis)
- Cucumber (timun)
- Hard boiled eggs (telur)
- A chilli condiment (sambal)
And when you take a spoonful of every element combined, be prepared for a sensory explosion! Okay, maybe that’s too dramatic but heck, I love my Nasi Lemak.
The ingredients:
Method:
Rice:
Wash the rice, drain the water and place the cleaned rice in a rice cooker.
In a bowl, mix together the coconut milk, salt with some water and pour into the rice cooker where the already cleaned rice is. Add in one knob of ginger that has been peeled and crushed. Stir well so that every grain is well coated.
If you have pandan (screwpine leaves) on hand, feel free to throw it in together with the rice as it will give an added fragrance to the rice. I would suggest 3-4 leaves for good measure.
Fried peanuts:
In a hot pan, with hot oil, fry up the peanuts and then set aside to cool.
Fried anchovies:
In the same pan, add more oil and make sure it is hot then fry up all the dried anchovies and then set aside to cool.
Save 2/3 of the fried anchovies for the sambal.
Eggs:
Boil the eggs until it is hard boiled – which will take about 8-10 minutes. Cut into halves.
Cucumber:
Slice a cucumber and set aside
Sambal:
If you’re a first timer or you want the easy way out (like I do), you can easily find ready-made sambal at any grocery store or asian supermarkets. It speeds up the process of making sambal as I used to spend hours trying to make the perfect sambal from scratch (which I eventually gave up on because it was too damn difficult to find all the required ingredients for my sambal while I was abroad).
Mince 4 cloves of garlic and slice up the onion.
In a warm pan with oil, fry the minced garlic until golden brown then add the sliced onions and cook until translucent. Add in the sambal paste along with 3-5 table spoons of water and cook until it starts to simmer.
Once the sambal begins to simmer, add in the 2/3 fried anchovies that was set aside earlier and turn off the gas.
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And there you have it! Pretty easy huh? I will always always always whip up some good ol’ Nasi Lemak whenever I missed home during my time abroad. It is also the best way to make new friends if you’re all alone in a foreign country so this easy nasi lemak recipe is something I always turn to.
Plating up
Plating up is super easy too. The rice acts as the centre piece and around the rice, place a tablespoon of the anchovies, peanuts, cucumber, sambal and half a boiled egg.
ENJOY!
