Nasi lemak is a Malay cuisine dish consisting of fragrant rice cooked in coconut milk and pandan leaf. It is commonly found in Malaysia, where it is considered the national dish. Nasi Lemak is often served for breakfast. However, because nasi lemak can be served in a variety of ways, it is often eaten throughout the day.
A popular condiment in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore, sambal is a sauce made from chilies, spices, herbs, and aromatics. It has a complex flavor that is all at once earthy, spicy, and hot. The traditional way of grinding the spices to make the sambal starter paste is to use a stone mortar and pestle. But you can use a blender to fasten the process.
What is Nasi Lemak?
Nasi Lemak, is a platter which consists of coconut milk, pandan flavoured rice which is served along side with a spicy sambal which has chillies, garlic, onions. This nasi lemak is also served with a additional sides like cucumber, fried anchovies, boiled eggs and peanuts.
You will love my Sambal Chicken & Sago Cake/ Kuih Sago
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What is Sambal?
Sambal is a spicy sauce made using red chillies, ginger, garlic, lemon grass, galangal, tamarind, palm sugar, onions and shallots. The paste is cooked in oil till the raw smell goes and the paste gets thick and oily.
How long can we Store Sambal?
You can make a huge batch and store in a glass jar for over a month in fridge.
Tips
- After the sambal is cooked, ladle as much of the hot sauce as you want onto your main dish or rice. The rest of the sambal should cool before storing in fridge or freezer.
- The frozen sambal will keep for 2 to 3 months. It’s best to freeze it in smaller containers and take out what you need for each meal.
- Most of the ingredients can be found at Asian markets or high-quality grocery stores with a robust international foods aisle.
Recipe Variations
- Instead of shallots, you can use small red onions.
- In place of the dried chilies, add chilli powder.
- If fresh turmeric is unavailable, use turmeric powder.
- If galangal is difficult to find you can use a 1-inch piece of fresh ginger.
- Instead of tamarind paste, use tamarind juice instead.
How to Make Perfect Rice for Nasi Lemak:
- Use fragrant jasmine rice if you can.
- Soak rice in water for 30 mins so it cooks faster.
- Cook the rice in thick coconut milk.
- Add pandan leaf for maximum flavour. Pandan leaf adds so much flavour to the rice.
- Add salt.
How to Make Perfect Sambal:
- Grind the sambal coarse so you get nice texture of the onions and chillies
- Always taste and adjust tamarind, jaggery.
- Add good amount of chillies for heat and colour.
- Cook the sambal till oil separates.
- Use generous amount of oil.
- You can add dried prawns or belachan taste for more umami flavour.
Hope you will give this a try and let me know how it turns out for you.
VIDEO RECIPE:
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Ingredients
For Rice:
- Basmati Rice or Short grain rice - 1 cup
- Coconut Milk - 2 cups
- Pandan Leaf or Ramba Ila - 1
- Salt to taste
For Sambal:
- Small onion - 10
- Onion - 1 chopped
- Dry Red Chillies - 10 to 15
- Ginger - 1 small pieces
- Garlic - 6
- Lemon Grass - 1
- Salt to taste
- Jaggery - 4 tblsp
- Tamarind paste - 2 tblsp
- Oil - 1/4 cup
For Serving:
- Cucumber
- Dried anchovies
- Fried peanuts
- Boiled eggs
Instructions
- Start by washing and soaking rice for 30 mins. Now take it in a sauce pan.
- Add salt, pandan leaf, coconut milk and mix well.
- Bring it to a boil. Cover and simmer for 15 mins till rice is cooked completely.
- Fluff up the rice and cover again. Set aside so it stays warm.
- Now make sambal. Grind all ingredients except tamarind and jaggery to a coarse paste.
- Heat oil and add the coarsely ground masala. Cook till raw smell leaves.
- Now add in tamarind and jaggery and mix well.
- Cook till oil separates. Set aside.
- Now fry some anchovies and peanuts.
- Boil some eggs.
- Serve sambal with rice, cucumber, peanuts, anchovies and boiled egg.
- Serve hot.
Pictorial:
1)Take all ingredients for sambal
2)Take all ingredients in a blender except palm sugar and tamardin.
3)Now it is smooth.
4)Heat oil in a pan. Add in ground sambal.
5)Mix well
6)Mix well and cook
7)Add tamarind paste
8)Add in palm jaggery
9)Mix well and cook on low heat till oil separates.
10)You need pandan leaf for the rice.
11)Add in washed rice in a pot.
12)Add in coconut milk
13)Add in pandan leaf
14)Add in salt
15)Bring it to a boil.
16)Cover and cook on a low heat till rice is completely cooked.
17)Now rice is cooked.
18)Fluff up the rice and cover and set aside
19)Now prepare all the sides. Take cucumber and slice them.
20)Fry some peanuts.
21)Fry some anchovies
22)Set aside
23)Boil some eggs and set aside.
24)Now take a serving plate.
25)Now take some rice and mould it
27)Unmould it in a plate
28)Spoon in some sambal
29)Add fried anchovies
29)Add in fried peanuts
30)Add eggs and cucumbers
31)Serve
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