Recipe: Easy, Beginners Nasi Lemak (With Step By Step Photos)

"Nasi lemak", which literally translates to Fat Rice in English, is a popular and signature dish in Malaysia, typically served for breakfast. You can find different versions of this within almost 5 km radius anywhere in KL on a normal weekday. Traditionally, it was eaten by our ancestors as breakfast due to the labour-intensive work they had to do during the day, such as rubber tapping, agriculture, carpentry etc - and nasi lemak fuelled their daily activity. 

Usually, nasi lemak's main focus is the rice, cooked in coconut milk, along with its' other condiments, mainly the sambal (spicy dried chilli sauce), boiled egg, fried anchovies, cucumber, and peanuts. Sometimes it is also served with other protein such as fried chicken (which you can see above), rendang, gulai and other dishes. I tend to get breakouts when I eat ground peanuts, so I usually never include it when I prepare nasi lemak at home. As it is a rather tedious cooking method, I cook this maybe once or twice a month. This is the most fuss free recipe to satisfy your nasi lemak craving.

Click the 'Read More' link below to view the full recipe!

Recipe: Nasi Lemak

Prep Time: 30 - 45 mins
Cooking Time: 1 hour mins
*My recipe is for 3 - 4 portions. I usually make extra for leftover/ lunch to work next day.

Ingredients
For Rice

3 pots of rice, wash until water is clear
1 box of coconut mik/ 1 cup of fresh coconut milk
2 1/2 cup of water
2 inch ginger, sliced into two
1 big red onion OR 3 small shallots, roughly sliced
1 clove garlic
2 shallots, roughly sliced

2 lemongrass stalks, bruise the roots with a pestle
(Optional) daun pandan, ikat / screwpine leaf, knotted - for fragrance
Salt

For Sambal
*1 big red onion OR 3 small shallots AND
*4 small shallots
*3 cloves garlic
Blend until fine the ingredients marked with *.

2 - 3 inches of tamarind paste, mixed with 2/3 cups of water
1 big red onion OR 3 small shallots, cut into rings AND
3 small shallots, cut into rings
"Gula Melaka" or palm sugar or brown sugar
1.5 - 2 cups of cili kisar/ dried chilli paste (*click for recipe*)

For Condiments
2 hard-boiled eggs
1 whole cucumber, sliced diagonally (I use Japanese cucumbers)
1 cup/ handful of fried anchovy

Fried chicken (300 grams of chicken wings + turmeric powder + salt)

Cooking Methods

1. The first thing I get out of my way is to wash the rice and soak the rice in water for ten minutes.  I also tend to prepare cili kisar/ dried chilli paste on the day when I am cooking nasi lemak.
2. Mix all the ingredients together for the rice into a rice cooker and leave to cook. My rule of thumb is dip my index finger on the rice and fill the water up until the first joint closest to the nail. Then I will add the coconut milk (if it's thick). However, if I am using coconut milk from the box, it's more watery, so I will use it in lieu of water, and add water to the empty box and add to the rice.
3. Heat a pan over medium fire. Add vegetable oil, you're gonna need a lot. If you use a lot of oil, your sambal will not cook properly.
4. Add the ingredients you blended earlier for the sambal. Keep an eye and stir continuously for at least 10 minutes. I've added in photos below for you to roughly know how the visual should look like when adding in the next ingredients.
5. Add the cili kisar/ dried chilli paste. Slightly reduce the fire and let it simmer. Stir continuously and do not let your pan burn! 
6. After simmering around 15 - 20 minutes, add the tamarind paste you soaked with water. Do not add the tamarind seeds. Add water if you need to.
7. Let the sambal simmer for an additional 20 minutes. Cook it with love! Relax. Finish other household chores. Work on other condiments. Don't rush the sambal, it's one of the main components of the dish.
8. Add the onion and shallot rings. Let it caramalize slowly.
9. Towards the end, season the dish with the sugar and salt. You will know it's cooked when you don't taste the rawness of the onions/ chilli, the oil has risen to the top, and it tastes good (general rule of thumb lol).
10. For the anchovy, to make it crispy and crunchy, it's really simple. Clean the anchovy (by cutting it in half and removing its' poop chute), then let it soak in cold water for 10 minutes. Heat a small pan over low - medium heat. Add around 1 cm of oil (enough for the anchovy to be fried in). Once you feel the heat from the oil, add the anchovy, let it cook for around a minute. The best way to test if it's cooked to your crunchy preference is to taste one for yourself.
11. For the fried chicken, wash, and clean your chicken (remove any offals), drain. Try to dry your chicken as much as possible. Season with salt and turmeric powder. For the best simple fried chicken, add vegetable oil into a small pan (around 2 cm height of the pan), and put on high heat. As soon as you see the oil starts to smoke, add your chicken skin side down. Once you have added all the chicken into your pan (cook in batches if you need to), wait for 2 - 3 minutes  or until you can see the skin crisp up before flipping the chicken over. After waiting 2 - 3 minutes,  reduce the heat to medium low and turn the chicken over again. Let it cook for at least 4 - 6 minutes (depends on the size of the chicken) before turning it over again. Once cooked (pierce thickest part of chicken with a knife; if the juice runs clear, it's cooked), place it on kitchen towel for it to soak up the excess oil.
12. For the ground peanuts, just roast it on a dry pan over low heat until the outer skin starts to flake of.

Notes

• You can refrigerate the rice and sambal. 
• Plan your cooking time properly so you don't exhaust yourself too much in the kitchen! Do read through and understand the steps required so you can time and pace yourself properly.

Ingredients for the rice. Unfortunately I didn't have daun pandan. 

Add the ingredients and give it a good stir. Place in rice cooker. Let the rice cooker do all the work for you. Stir in between cooking time. You may need to uncover the rice cooker for a while as it tends to bubble and spill over the sides.

The ingredients required to blend together for the sambal.

Sautéing the blended ingredients.

Adding in the cili kisar/ dried chilli paste.

Mixing the items together.

Reduce the heat so your sambal doesn't burn. Keep an eye out on it.

Just realised that tamarind paste doesn't look so attractive haha.

Add in the tamarind paste to the sambal. It will make the sambal more sour, reduce the spiciness and give it a more dark, deep and rich colour. Add little by little and taste; adjust based on your taste preference.

My onion and shallot rings, ready to be added into the sambal mixture.

Adding in the onions and shallots as it will give a natural sweetness to the sambal, which helps to reduce the spiciness.

Keep stirring the sambal..

And stirring.. don't forget the sambal... You can work on other condiments now but don't forget to stir your sambal!!! 

This is a final look at how the sambal should look like after you add the palm sugar and salt. The sugar adds a glossy shine to the dish.

So this is how an anchovy looks like when you split it in half.

Cleaned anchovies! This is about two handfuls.

Let it soak in cold water for five minutes. Work on other condiments (steam/ boil your egg, chop your cucumbers...) then strain!

Heat some vegetable oil in a shallow pan over medium low heat. Add the anchovies (careful, the oil may pop). Let it cook.

This is how crunchy anchovy should look like.

Chicken wings that have been cleaned, washed, and dried, seasoned with turmeric powder and salt. The turmeric will give it that nice, golden colour.

It's a messy affair frying them chickens (you can see the oil splatters all over the stove).

Fried chicken waiting to be gobbled.

All the condiments (sans sambal).

Serving suggestion. Enjoy! My daughter ate the rice, mixed with the hardboiled eggs, and the chicken drumettes.