For me, the most important thing in a Nasi Lemak is the rice, chicken wing and the egg crepe. I love those Nasi Lemak stalls where they sell layers of egg crepe rather than sun shine egg. And with sweet sambal chilli and perhaps some stir fried cabbage, I am already more than satisfied. While some people might like the ikan bilis, peanuts or fried kuning fish, I am certainly perfectly fine without all that.
To ensure all the ingredients in the Nasi Lemak are cooked concurrently, I was juggling between 2-3 woks at the same time !! Tough seh ! Frying the chicken wings, stir frying the cabbage and pan frying the egg crepe, whilst monitoring the food processor grinding the sambal chilli at the same time !! Called me superwoman, I really seem to be working like an octopus !! I didn’t know how I gotten all that done without any of the food being burnt, but somehow I managed it pretty well !! Just that the kitchen was kind of a mess thereafter. Hahaha !!
I still remember when I first started to cook Nasi Lemak, after the rice was cooked, there was still a thick layer of coconut milk floating on top and the rice was pretty soggy. I guess the only challenge in this recipe is the proportion of coconut milk to rice. Also, for an even better aroma, I added some fresh pandan juice.
And to cook the egg crepe till fine, turn down the heat to low when the egg is cooking and flip over only when the egg is 90% cooked, to prevent the egg from breaking into parts when flipped.
Met up with a friend yesterday who started using PurelyFresh too and was really delighted that it helped her mum and her with all their fresh groceries needs, especially the aged mom does not need to carry back heavy groceries from the wet market anymore. It’s always happy to learn of people whom are benefitted with my recommendations ! And so are those who are inspire by others’ recipes to start cooking too !
So here’s today Nasi Lemak recipe, including all the ingredients’ recipes too !! Enjoy !
- 1 cup rice, wash and rinsed
- 200ml fresh coconut milk
- 4 tbsp pandan juice (extract from 6 pcs of pandan leaves blended together with 100ml of water)
- 3 pcs pandan leaves
- some cucumber slices (for serving with the Nasi Lemak)
- some banana leaaves (for serving the Nasi Lemak on)
- 6 pcs chicken wings
- 1½ tbsp light soya sauce
- 1 tbsp sweet soya sauce/kicap manis
- 1 tsp onion powder
- ½ garlic powder
- ½ tsp ginger powder
- 1 tsp sugar
- 2 tbsp corn flour
- Some cooking oil (for deep frying the wings)
- 3 tbsp corn flour, mixed with 1 tbsp rice flour (optional)
- 1½ tbsp cooking oil
- 2 eggs
- ¼ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp pepper
- 150g cabbage, sliced
- ½ carrot, julienned
- 200ml water
- 1 tsp minced garlic
- 1 tbsp cooking oil
- 1 tbsp light soya sauce
- ½ tbsp sweet soya sauce/kicap manis
- 3 tsp sugar
- 3 tbsp dried anchovies (soaked in water for 15 mins and rinsed several times to remove excess salt and drained till very dry.)
- 80g shallots
- 10 whole garlics
- 180g chilli paste
- 1 tbsp cooking oil (for blending) + 4 tbsp cooking oil (for cooking)
- ½ tbsp belachan (toasted at 180 degrees C for 10 mins)
- 3 tsp sugar, or more if necessary
Marinade the chicken wings with the marinade ingredients and set aside in the fridge for at least 6 hours or preferably overnight.
Blend some pandan leaves together with 100ml of water in a food processor.
Filter away the pandan leaves to retain the pandan juice. Further extract more pandan juice by squeezing the whole bunch of pandan leaves together.
After washing and rinsing the rice, add in the fresh coconut milk and pandan juice, together with the pandan leaves tied in a knot and cooked the rice in a rice cooker.
When the rice is cooked, remove the pandan leaves and stir the rice to mix in the coconut milk residue that might be floating on top. Close the rice cooker and keep it in warm mode.
Beat the eggs lightly with the salt and pepper. Heat up the 1½ tbsp of cooking oil and add in the eggs mixture. Reduce the heat to low.
When one side of the eggs is 90% cooked, flip it over gently. It should still be in one whole round piece and not break into pieces.
After flipping over, continue to cook the eggs for another 20 seconds and off the flame. Allow the eggs to continue to sit in the pan for another 1 minute in the pan before removing.
Add in 1 tbsp of cooking oil in another wok and saute 1 tsp of minced garlic till fragrant. Add in the julienned carrots and stir fried till the carrots are slightly softened.
Add in the cabbage, water, light soya sauce, kicap manis and sugar respectively. Allow the cabbage to simmer in the water till the water is much reduced, till 20% of the original amount. Off the flame and set aside.
Heat up some cooking oil and deep fried the dried anchovies till golden brown and crispy. Drain and set aside.
Blend the shallots, garlics, chilli paste, belachan and 1 tbsp of cooking oil in a food processor till the paste is finely blend.
Heat up 4 tbsp of cooking oil in a wok and add in the finely blend sambal chilli mixture from previous step. Keep stirring so that the chilli does not burn, till fragrant.
Add in the sugar and deep fried dried anchovies. Stir slightly more till sugar melts and anchovies are well mixed. Taste and add more sugar if preferred sweeter. Off the flame.
Heat up some cooking oil for deep frying the chicken wings. If you prefer a crispier skin texture, coat the chicken wings with a thin layer of corn flour + rice flour mixture and deep fried the chicken wings. Otherwise, deep fried once remove the marinated wings from the fridge.
Serve Nasi Lemak on banana leaves. Arrange the rice and ingredients neatly and served with slices of cucumber.
