ways to eat Nasi Lemak
In Malaysia, majority of us use our right hand to eat nasi lemak.
Two ways to eat nasi lemak, first to take a small portion of nasi lemak using tip of fingers and mix with small portion of sambal. Take a bit of the condiment, which is the anchovies, egg and ground nut. Eat together using the same fingers.
Second way is to mix up all the rice and the sambal using right hand so that every part of rice is coated with sambal before eating.
What is Nasi Lemak?
The word nasi means rice and the word lemak is referring to the coconut milk that has been added to the rice. The garnishing, which is a hard-boiled egg, fried anchovies, fried peanuts and cucumber slices. To make it more scent, serve on cut banana leaves.
As the banana leaves were natural packaging food in the earlier time, some still incorporate it in their way to serve nasi lemak. We call it nasi lemak bungkus.
Ingredients for Nasi Lemak
The main ingredients to cook nasi lemak is rice, coconut milk, water and salt. Alternatively, you may add ginger slices, black pepper and pandan leave to add fragrance to it.
The type of rice that we used in the making is white rice. Some may use jasmine rice or basmati rice. Commonly people noted about this dish is the rice which has a distinctive fragrance and spicy-sweet sambal.
The rice needs to be washed two to three times before being cooked. It is part of Malaysian’s routine to wash rice before cooking.
the Sambal For Nasi Lemak
The ingredients to make sambal used dried chillies, onion, garlic, tamarind paste, shrimp paste, sugar and salt.
The sambal comes with a variety such as sambal kerang (cockles), sambal sotong (squid) and sambal paru (beef lungs )
The sambal must be spicy-sweet, reddish-brown in colour and cooked for at least 15 minutes with low heat.
The colour of the sambal will indicate how long it has been cooked. If the sambal is undercooked it will be reddish in colour and may cause stomach ache.
Thus, the preparation of sambal is very crucial even though it seems simple.
Commercial Nasi Lemak
Nasi Lemak is so famous that I can see plenty of sellers selling nasi lemak in my neighbourhood.
Some sell in restaurants, food courts and stalls.
As my hometown is commonly known for many wet markets, the seller can find fresh ingredients at a reasonable price.
The Nasi Lemak is a complete meal with nutrition and we can get it at an affordable price.
Here in my hometown with the simple presentation of the classic nasi lemak, it only costs a minimum of RM1.50.
However, depending on where we get the cuisine, sometimes nasi lemak can also become a luxurious meal.
Some restaurants charged us a plate of Nasi Lemak ranging from RM15 to RM45 per serving in the Klang Valley.
However, I am apprehensive about the price and certainly, think many times before dining at an expensive restaurant.
Nasi Lemak is so famous that it has become a permanent meal on the fast-food chain restaurant in Malaysia.
The recipe of nasi lemak is different for everyone and I must say there is no right or wrong recipe, only the preference of the family members make it taste distinctively unique from one another.
Preferably when the urge to eat comes, we rather cook our own. We can prepare more for every family to enjoy it as much as they wish. 🙂
Updated and checked by Halaman Sihat on 6th June 2024.
Halaman Sihat 