Thanks for all the feedback I got for my last newsmail and posts here on this blog! Somebody was asking me for a recipe for Nasi Lemak, so here are some hints…
The basic principle of Nasi Lemak is very simple: Instead of cooking plain rice in water, it is cooked in coconut milk. But often, the little details make all the difference…
- For the “real” taste, there should be some knotted Pandan Leafs (Screwpine) added to the rice, they add a special fragrance to it.
- In Singapore, the principle side dishes served with Nasi Lemak are different from what one would get in Malaysia. The essential ones are Ikan Bilis (small dried anchovies) with peanuts, cucumbers and fried egg. Apart from that, any vegetables (often Kankung or something which tastes similar to eggplant/aubergines) can be added, as well as chicken, roasted fish or curry.
There are a lot of Nasi Lemak recipes1) on Internet: Here is a nice one. I’d probably replace the ginger with pandan leafes though, if you can get any. For the sauce, you can take any spicy Sambal sauce. Another variant is provided by Greg. Looks quite good, doesn’t it? I bet if you fry the anchovies and the peanuts together, it would be even better :-)
Finally, here is a nice picture of typical Singaporean Nasi Lemak.
Enjoy (and keep sending me feedback)!
1) Is there a native English speaker who can tell me how to pronounce “recipe”?