How To Make Nasi Lemak - The National Dish of Malaysia

My friend said that one time she was trying to make the shrimp paste and it's like such a strong smell. Her neighbors called cops on her and it's like, they must be killing some people. They don't want to see a corpse inside. Hi everyone, my name is Kiu Peng and I'm a chef and owner at Kopitiam. Today I'm going to make the nasi lemak, which is the national dish in Malaysia. To start, we have to make the base for the ikan bilis, which is the anchovies in Malay language. Starting off, we will have to blend the shallots, the garlics, and also the anchovies, and then put it on the side. This shallot, it looks like onion. I give it a little kick. Baba Nyonya cuisine is the first generation of the fusion cuisines in Southeast Asia. The Baba Nyonyas are the street Chinese. We combine the cooking knowledge from China, the Portuguese, the English, the local Malay and also India. So now I'm going to blend the shallots and the garlic. I will add the anchovies into it. Make sure that the anchovies is always dry, otherwise that you will kind of like destroy the taste of it. Trust me, the paste doesn't look very pretty, but once you mix them all together later, it will become something very pretty. I promise. Growing up in Malaysia, there were a lot of people working by the piers. We used to wrap this nasi lemak in banana leaves, and people would just grab and they'd go, but they were so good. After you blend, this is how it looks like. Next thing, we're gonna do the chilies. I'm gonna cut the head off. If Kopitiam is a person, that should be a grandfather or grandmother that you haven't seen for a long time. Whenever you see them, whether you are in a good mood or not, they always greet you with the same type of energies. And always feed you and say, oh, like, eat this. This is the dry chili. And these are the red chilies that I call this the sweet chilies. And then that one is the Thai chilies and in our language we call it chili paddies, which is like the spiciest chilies. So same thing I take off from the top. The spiciness depends on how much you want to put this in. I usually don't like to put that much of the small chilies because it will get spicier. Then we're gonna start blending. And then when you start blending there's always an option for some people the shrimp paste which we call the belacan has a very strong smell. It's an option for you to put it inside here while you blend the chilies or not. The belacan itself is very salty and has a really strong taste. Don't use too much of it depends on how much that you want. You can see the color become darker. Then Then we're going to take them out. And then the next thing is that when we mix everything together, we kind of add in tamarind paste. The tamarind paste has the seeds, so the best way to strain them is to use the boiling hot water. But try not to put so much water from the very beginning. You want to make sure that you're getting the concentrated water out of it. Then you add it by time. Some of my recipes started from my great grandmother because my parents they were both arranged marriage and the family were known for making different dishes. When someone asked me what is the most important tools in the kitchen, I usually say the hands because it is the main bridge that connects your food and your soul. After you think that you kind of like strains everything and then you see like only the seed, then you can just kind of like leave this alone and you can see like this one is pretty concentrate. But tamarind is very sour so I like to balance it with the sugar so it gives it a stronger caramel taste. And then this is all heated up. Next thing that we're gonna do is put the oil. The amount of oil is enough to cover the surface of it. You don't want your chilies to be too oily because later on we're gonna fry the anchovies and also the peanuts, which contains a lot of oil itself already. So we can sear the one with the heavy taste first. You don't really have to use all of them unless you're doing like a big amount, then that's when you do. These are the chilies that we already blend with the belacan. So now that we kind of mix it into it. Same thing, you don't have to put everything in it. But if you want, then you could. It's the spiciness. But just make sure that the chilies is enough to cover the anchovies. Then the last thing is you put the tamarind. And then tamarind paste. Nasi lemak is like, you think that you're not going to like it. Because people always misunderstood anchovies. They think that anchovies is something that you open from the can and it scares people away. So this one you just have to keep cooking until it gets more caramelized and then I usually taste and see if there's anything that I want to adjust whether I want it a little bit sweeter. Trust me it doesn't look interesting the paste never but when you put them together you see differently. I like the way that my grandmother always tell me stories about something so that I will start liking the things that they are making. She would be like you know like sometimes there are people that you don't like their characters something about them you don't like. But without that, they are not them. When it comes to your food, it's the same thing. You can see that the colors start showing up. And then for me, like here is not enough sweetness. So I would just add a little bit more sugars to make it more caramelized. I can see like all these little red things is from the chili oil. Just to remember to control the temperature of the fire so that it doesn't over burn it. I like to keep this on the side. Overnight before I use it, it makes it easier to blend it because if these are hot, after you fry the anchovies and everything, they also create heat as well. So when you mix it together, it has the water that will make the anchovies and peanuts soft, which I try to prevent. Okay, I think it's about done. Okay, I think it's about to be done. And the next thing we're going to do is the coconut rice. We just have to rinse it. These are the Thai jasmine rice. So you kind of do this a little bit, but not too strong. You have to be soft and gentle. And then you throw this water off, and then rinse it for one more time. So after I rinse it for two times, I already strain this, and then here it goes. Then we're going to put it into the rice cooker. And this is the pandan leaves. We use that a lot in our cooking. You can get them in the supermarket. It usually comes in frozen. I like to cut the back off. You have to tie a knot so that it's easier for you to remove it after you are done cooking. It's the Southeast Asian type of vanilla leaves. You feel like it's sweet. It smells very mellow, but at the same time, it is so comfortable. And then you put that, like, right in the middle. Then... Pour the water and here's the salt. Personally I like sea salt so just put like a pinch. The reason why they will put the salt is because when it's cooked the rice is going to be so rich because you're gonna Pour the coconut milk in it. When something is too rich, you'll feel like, oh, this is too much for me to handle. But the salt is a magic that will tone down a little bit. You're gonna cook it and then wait for the rice to be done. So the next thing is that we will boil the eggs. While those are boiling, for peanuts, the best way is maybe like one minute right after you pour the oil, then you start putting the peanuts. The nasi lemak is like a combination of everything. Just like in Malaysia, we have multi-races. Chinese, we have Malay, we have Indians, like the Baba Nyonya, the Sriani, the Iban, the Kadazan. And then the nasi lemak is also like something that makes it whole. It's a combination of everything to become one. By the time it starts boiling, then the peanuts are ready. We let it spread out because the temperature will still go on and it will let it spread. So now it's seven minutes. We can turn the eggs off and then rinse it with cold water. So here's the anchovies. For some people who don't know, these are all the female anchovies. The male anchovies is a lot darker, a lot tougher, and a lot cheaper. If you're not sure about the temperature of the oil, you can just throw one and then see like this is probably not hot enough. So when you do have like some bubbly and then you can hear like, that's when it's about ready. Yeah, growing up, I love anchovies so much that I would be like, oh, like I want extra anchovies. And if you think that the oil is not enough, you can always add more oil in it. After we fried it, I turned off the heat. Now it's the time to strain it, because you can still see some of the oil is still here. And then put some bouncy right there, and then you can start pouring it over. Trying to figure it out if that's male or female, but it's, like, tiny. It's like a Nemo right here. Now we put the anchovies in the mixing bowl. On top of this paper is things that you don't want them to be in your bowl, so your anchovies is still nice and clean. Put the peanuts. This is the sambal paste that we made earlier. You can mix it. Don't put everything in one shot. Mix it as you go. Make sure that everything was covered. The reason why you shouldn't put everything in it is because you don't want that to be too saucy. You just want to be like the right, perfect amount. You always have to be very gentle. If you're going to mash it, it's going to be powdered anchovies. So you can see, I didn't even use all of them. Then it's already all mixed and covered. And then here's the rice. You can take this up, because the rice already absorbs the flavor from the pandan. And this is the coconut. So just pour it in. Anything that was cooked with the coconut, they give you a very strong, creamy flavor. So those are considered as lemak. Lemak means rich. And then you let it steam for a little bit so that the rice will absorb the flavor of the coconut. The cucumber. This type of cucumber would be ideal. These are the cucumber that people usually use it for Japanese cuisines or any other salads because they have less seeds and they are crunchier and a little bit sweeter. That's why I like to use this one. You can cut off the top and the bottom and slice it into half. But you don't have to cut all of them. We only use eight slices. These are the eggs that we cooked earlier, so you can crack them and put it on the side as a garnish. You can find these banana leaves at most of the Chinese stores, Vietnamese stores. You can always cut. And then like this size. Reason why we use banana leaves is because banana leaves represent how it was in Malaysia. People actually eat that leaves. I realized, oh! I remember one customer, she was like, everything was great, but at the end, I think it was seaweed. And it's a little bit bitter. I was like, ah! And then she was like, oh, I'm not supposed to eat that? I was like, yeah, you're not supposed to. This is how we plate it. I put this on the bottom. Put the rice, you can press them. It's like one-third of the anchovy mix and two-thirds of the rice. And here you go. Ta-da! And then you put the cucumber. And why is it eight? Because eight is a lucky number for our beliefs. The next thing is the egg. Play like a smiley face. And yes, here's nasi lemak. I like to have a bite of the rice together with the anchovies and the peanuts first and then add a little bit of the cucumber and a little bit of the eggs so it totally depends on how you want to eat it. It reminds me about the day that my dad brought me to to get this nasi lemak and when I opened up the second one and then I feel like I'm eating so much second plate but after that I realized that oh it's okay to eat two or three no one judged you. For nasi lemak's recipe click the link below. If you don't want to make this at home, always welcome to come to Kopitiam and we'll serve this to you.