My culinary journey

Passport & Plate - Flavourful Nasi Lemak

Belgium | Tuesday, March 3, 2015 | 5 photos

Ingredients
This recipe is proportioned for 2-3 persons

For the curry:
400g of chicken breasts
180ml of thick coconut milk
30ml of water (this amount depends on how thick you want the curry to be)
2-3 sticks of galangal (to give the sweet nodes to the curry)
2-4 candle nuts (to thicken the paste and give it a smooth, silky texture)
8-10 red chilies
7-8 shallots
3 tablespoons of peanut oil
Salt and sugar to taste

Garnishing:
2-3 hard boiled eggs
1 cup of peanuts, fried or roasted
1 cup of anchovies (ikan bilis -local Malay term), fried until crispy
1/2 sliced cucumber
2 slices of pineapple (optional)

For the rice:
2 cups of basmati rice
21/2 cups of water
2-3 Screwpine leaves/Pandan leaves (optional)(This gives a fragrant smell to the rice)

 

How to prepare this recipe
Method:

For the rice:
--Rinse your rice and drain. Soak for about 10-15 minutes before putting on fire to cook.
-Add the water, a pinch of salt, and the pandan leaves into the rice.
-Cook on low heat for about 30 minutes until fluffy white.

For the curry:
-Slice the onions, galangal and red chilies finely
-The diced onions, galangal, chilies and candle nuts are added together with a little water to be blended. Put the paste away after blending in the food processor.
-Heat the pan with oil and fry the paste until fragrant.
-Slowly add in the coconut milk and stir until the mixture is thick.
-Add the slices of chicken meat into the gravy and let it simmer until the meat is tender.

Garnishing:
-Slice the hard boiled eggs into halves and put aside
-For the anchovies, rinse and drain the water. In a clean pan, pour some oil and fry the anchovies until they turn light brown. Put them aside.
-For the cucumber, cut it thinly into slices

Once the rice is cooked, serve with chicken curry, cucumber slices, fried peanuts, pineapple and hard-boiled eggs.

 

The story behind this recipe
Most of the world's greatest cuisines arise from the principle of mélange, just as this dish which I share. My flavourful "Nasi Lemak", Malaysia's national dish, is essentially a mix of Indian & Thai curries, deliciously dribbled with local ingredients such as roasted peanuts and fiery red chilies, although surprisingly, each garnishing is separated on the big plate. The cauldron of flavors, from the spiciness of the chilies, to the nuttiness of peanuts is rounded with the sweet nodes of coconut milk. The structure of the fragrant rice is memorable. It is slightly sticky and its smell from the screwpine leaves, distinctive. You eat it with your hand, taking a scoop of rice and mixing it together with the thick, spicy, gravy of the chicken curry. When a tingling sensation is felt on your tongue or throat, quickly take a bite off the smooth, cool hard-boiled egg and cucumber slices. As a child, I used this technique of gobbling eggs to extinguish the spiciness to great effects. It was a phenomenon: my first experience of "Nasi Lemak"

My infatuation with "Nasi Lemak" is more than this because there is an intimate relationship between food and man. I remembered arriving in Belgium on a cold autumn evening. This was my first time spending 18 months and more than 10,000km apart from family. After some days in Ghent, classmates decided to do the pub crawl to get to know the city better. It was during that night, that I met Jonathan. It was a cordial encounter, so I invited him over for dinner. I soon realized that with my limited culinary skills, I needed a dish to impress . "Nasi Lemak" is best eaten in autumn and winter. Hearty food to see optimistic misanthropes through to spring. The curry with rice was a glorious combination to make it to a man's heart! We are now married and "Nasi Lemak" is still as desirable as ever. I have to eat now, because thinking about "Nasi Lemak" gets me hungry....