🇲🇾 How to Make Nasi Lemak

Craving Nasi Lemak? On FoodNeverComes the food never actually comes — so here's how to make real Nasi Lemak at home, in about 45 min, with stuff you probably already have.

🛒 Ingredients

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• 300g jasmine rice
• 200ml coconut milk + 200ml water
• 2 pandan leaves, knotted
• 1 slice ginger, salt
• Sambal: 12 dried chillies, soaked and drained
• 3 shallots + 2 cloves garlic + 1 small onion
• 1 tsp belacan (toasted shrimp paste)
• 2 tbsp tamarind water + 1 tbsp palm sugar
• To serve: fried ikan bilis (dried anchovies), roasted peanuts, cucumber, half a boiled egg

👩‍🍳 Method

1. Rinse the rice until the water runs clear, then cook it in the coconut milk and water with the pandan and ginger. Bring it up gently — coconut milk boiled hard splits and turns the rice greasy.
2. Blend the chillies, shallots, garlic, onion and belacan into a smooth paste.
3. Fry the paste in a good slick of oil over medium heat for 15 min, until the colour deepens and the oil separates out red at the edges. That split is how you know it is cooked; an underfried sambal tastes raw and sharp no matter how long you season it.
4. Add the tamarind water and palm sugar and cook down until it is jammy, not runny.
5. Fry the anchovies in shallow oil until properly crisp and drain them well.
6. Mound the rice on a banana leaf with the sambal beside it, anchovies, peanuts, cucumber and egg around the edge. Breakfast food, eaten with the fingers, wrapped in paper.