asi Lemak
Ingredients
2 cups of long grain rice
1 cup THICK coconut milk, preferably fresh
2 cups water
6 pandan leaves, loosely tied into knots
generous pinch of unrefined sea salt
Method
1. Rinse rice with water until water is almost clear. If you use basmati/brown rice, soak 30min/overnight in advance.
2. Put all ingredients into the rice cooker. Let cook. Then do the "close and wait, open and fluff, close and wait, open and breathe". It's also the same when you cook rice in a pot.
Nasi Lemak actually refers to the coconut milk rice, but is often used to describe the whole dish served with its side dishes. There are many many accompaniments, from the more elaborate fried ikan (little fishes)/ chicken wings, beef rendang, otak otak (grilled fish paste in banana leaves) and achar (sweet, sour and spicy pickled vegetables), to the most basic hardboiled/fried egg and cucumber slices. All faff aside, there's just 3 things you really need, in order of importance:
1. The rice
2. Sambal tumis (belachan chilli)
3. Crispy ikan bilis (dried anchovies) and peanuts
We've got 1 and 2 settled. Ikan bilis is slightly different from the anchovies we're used to seeing in Italian food. These little fishes are dried but pack just as much salty flavour with less of the fishiness, and are dirt cheap in most Asian dried foods stores. Roasted along with the peanuts (also dirt cheap), this is a super addictive combination of salty nutty umami that I find myself snacking on even without the nasi lemak.