Foodie

Monday, June 06, 2005

Nasi Lemak

This dish is a very popular breakfast meal in malaysia. Traditionally the rice and accompaniments are wrapped in banana leaves and the accompaniments are simple with just Sambal Ikan bilis, hard boil egg and slices of cucumber. Nowadays, city folks are affluent and the accompaniments are limitless. to mention a few, beef or chicken rendang, fried chicken, sambal sotong/kerang(cockles). As this meal was our dinner i had to prepare it more substantially so i cooked sambal sotong and fried chicken besides the usual accompaniments.

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Ingredients:
(A)
300 gm fragrant jasmine rice, washed
450 ml coconut milk
1 tsp salt
5 thin slices of ginger
1/4 of an onion, sliced thinly

4 tbsp oil
300 gm of fresh sotong, clean and cut into bite size
1 big onion
1 tsp asam jawa(tamarind) mixed with 2 tbsp water, squeeze and strain
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt to taste

Sambal(pounded)

5 dried chillies, soaked
3 red chillies
6 shallots
2 pips garlic
1 stalk serai(lemongrass) sliced
1 tsp belachan powder

Accompaniments

Fried Chicken
3 hard boiled eggs, halved
1 cucumber, sliced
Fried peanuts


Method:


  1. Put all ingredients (A) into a steaming tray and steam overe high heat until rice is cooked and dry. Stand for 15 minutes before fluffing up with fork or chopsticks.
  2. Heat oil and saute pounded ingredients until fragrant and oil is separated from the sambal. Add in the sliced onions and cook until onions are soft. Add in the asam jawa juice, sugar and salt to taste. Lastly add in the sotong and saute sotong until cooked and this will be a short while as sotong cooks very fast. They are cooked when they are curled.
  3. Dish out and serve.

Notes:

I like to fry the ikan bilis in the microwave as it is easy and it will not stench the whole house.

Wash the ikan bilis and drain dry with a kitchen towel. Put into a plate and mix with 1 tsp of cooking oil(it does not require alot of oil to get it crispy). Microwave on high for 2 mins the first time, stir and microwave for a minute at a time until the degree of crispiness desired. Sprinkle with salt.

The peanuts can be cooked in the microwave or the oven without oil but i prefer to fry the peanuts in oil as it tasted better. sprinkle with salt when it is still hot.

Replaced the sotong with fried ikan bilis in the sambal which is authentically right.

Serves

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi!

What a good idea to fry the ikan bilis in the microwave. I'll have to try it soon, much healthier way of cooking.

Thanks for sharing.
Regards

Anonymous said...

Cooking ikan bilis in microwave. Wow.Maybe you can write an article what food can be cook well in the microwave.
One of the readers of www.durainroom.com recommended this site for cooking.
Would appreciate if you put www.durianroom.com in your link.
Hope you are doing well in the snow storm and BKT sounds good now.

Thanks

Chris
www.DurianRoom.com

ioyces said...

hi Lily!

the nasi lemak looks fabulous!
For the rice, can i cook it in the rice cooker or microwavel? I usually use a microwave rice cooker...

thank you very much!

Unknown said...

joyces

these are the 2 best ways to cook the rice

Anonymous said...

Hi Lily,

Firstly, thank you for sharing your recipes. My mom recommended me your blog, and I have been trying out a couple of your recipes, to the delight of my family!

I am keen to try making nasi lemak, if I am using belachan instead of the powder, how much should I use? Thanks in advance.

Unknown said...

anonymous

just 1 inch square piece of 1/4 inch thick will do. you have to roast it before you cook with it

Purple~MushRooM said...

I could not get belancan powder here. Is it ok to use Sambal Udang to cook this? Those bottle type of sambal udang i brought from KL.

Unknown said...

purple-mushroom

sambal udang should be ok, adjust the taste with tamarind juice. although this sambal has dried prawns, it should enhance your sauce

Purple~MushRooM said...

I made nasi lemak today and it was a success. Check out my blog!

jtc said...

Hi Lily, silly me tried shallow frying the ikan bills before consulting my favorite cookblog (yours of course!). And it's fail, fail, fail.
Do you think I can still salvage this batch of uncrispy ikan bilis by microwaving it further, or any suggestion?
Thanks!

Unknown said...

jtc

absolutely, just spread the fried ikan bilis on a plate, cover with kitchen towel and zap, 1/2 min at a time, check crispiness. i suggest 1/2 min cos i don't know how browned you have fried them or how high the wattage in your microwave.

good luck give me a feedback

jtc said...

Hi Lily, thank you so much for your help. It worked! Because they were already quite brown, I only microwaved it till it was no longer soft & reasonably crisp. If it wasn't so fried, could probably microwave more; but its good enough - saved from failure!!
Would this microwave method work for fried shallots or onions too?

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