Nasi Lemak

Made one of Ed's favorite all-time food, Nasi Lemak. He loves it and besides I've ran out of ideas of what to cook! ;) Nasie Lemak is fairly easy; make the fragrant rice, slice some cucumbers, get the ikan bilis sambal ready and pretty much the rest are whatever your tastebuds are up to. And in this case, Sambal Prawns. Also pretty easy to make once you have your "base" sambal paste all ready-made. And yes, I used coconut milk for the rice, again, I'm using it to get the authentic taste and the fragrance of it.

Sambal paste recipe
Ingredients
shallots, 10
garlic, 1 whole clove
dried chilli, 10-15 deseeded and soaked till soft (I used the microwave to soften)
belacan, half a thumb size

Method
Blend everything into a paste with a food processor, adding water if needed to get a paste like consistency.
Then heat some oil, add the paste and stir occasionally at medium heat till oil is seen floating on top of mixture.
At this point, add sugar, salt and water( if needed).
Stir some more till fragrant or rather pungent..:D


Nasi Lemak recipe
Ingredients
Rice
Pandan leaves, rinsed, shredded in the middle and knotted
Coconut milk( I use the can version)
Water
Salt

Method
Rinse rice as you would for cooking "regular" rice, minus the water.
Then reduce the amount of water that you would use for cooking the rice by 1/3 and subsitute the remaining 2/3 with coconut milk.
Add the knotted pandan leaves and salt and let it steam in the rice cooker.


Sambal Ikan Billis
Ingredients
Ikan Billis or small anchovies, rinsed
Sugar
Sambal Paste

Method
Fried anchovies till crispy, add sambal paste then sugar and salt to taste


Sambal Prawns
Ingredients
1 medium onion, sliced thinly
Prawns, cleaned
Sambal Paste

Method
Heat oil, add onions, fried till silghtly transparent.
Add prawns and stir fried till prawns are 90% done.
Then add in some sambal paste, stir.
Add Sugar and salt to taste. Serve


Note: Once the Sambal Paste is done, the rest is simply quite easy to assemble. Also note that all the amount varies according to own's preferences. Other sides with the nasi lemak could be fried fish, omelette, fried chicken wings..whatever rocks your boat..:D

Chicken Curry and Rice

I love Chicken Curry on occassions when I'm too lazy to cook. This dish espeically brings back fond memories of home and family. Every special occasions and get-togethers called for chicken curry and with that you always need fried beehoon. For some reason, those two dishes always go so well together.

Before I digress any further, I'd experimented with the Chicken Curry recipe many a times and finally tweak it to my liking. Everytime I needed a quick fix of something spicy, Chicken Curry is always on my mind, besides, it's so versatile, who can argue...:)

Chicken Curry recipe(4 servings)

Ingredients
Curry Powder, 3 heaping tablespoons
Curry Leaves (optional), a handful; washed and rinsed
Lemongrass, crushed at the ends
1.5 can coconut milk
Chicken pieces, cut bite-size (I used boneless, skinless chicken thighs)
Potatoes, 3 mediums and cut to bite-size(I usually use Yukon Gold)
Carrots, 4 medium and cut to bite-size

Method
1. Add enough water to curry powder to make into a paste.
2. Heat oil in pot (medium heat) and add the crushed lemongrass, stir a little, then add the curry paste with the curry leaves, stir fry that on medium heat. Add a little of coconut milk if the mixture begins to stick to the pot and continue with the frying.
3. Once oil starts to appear on the mixture, add chicken pieces, potatoes and carrots and mix.
4. Then add the coconut milk into the pot plus the same amount of water.
5. Bring it to a boil, then turn the heat down to simmer. Simmer till the gravy has reduced and thickened.
6. Ready to serve with rice, bread, or noodles.

Note: All the ingredients are portioned to one's liking, it's not exact science so you can pretty much change the amount needed to suit your taste. I used coconut milk coz I like the flavour as such, you can use regular milk as well but the fragrance would be lost. Add extra chilli powder in when mixing the curry powder if you like it spicy, alternatively, you can always add fresh chillis into the curry while simmering.