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5 Secrets to 20 Minute Dinners!
Tips, tricks, and recipes for dinner in a hurry!
Nasi Lemak is the de facto national dish of Malaysia. It’s one of the most popular dishes, consumed and loved by all Malaysians regardless of our ethnicities, race, or origins.
A good nasi lemak recipe is not to be taken lightly; it should be have amazing quality, texture, flavors, and the right ingredients.
Secret Ingredients of Nasi Lemak
Pandan leaves or screwpine leaves in the secret ingredient. The leaves are highly fragrant with floral smell. They are used in many Malaysian recipes.
A nasi lemak will not be authentic without the leaves and coconut milk. The other main ingredient of nasi lemak is sambal. Sambal is the soul of the dish; it brings together all the various toppings and complete the iconic dish.
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Side Dishes for Nasi Lemak
There are a variety of side dishes served on top of the nasi lemak: fried anchovies, fried fish, hard-boiled eggs, cucumber slices, sambal anchovies, sambal udang (shrimp), sambal sotong (squid), beef rendang, chicken rendang or belacan fried chicken.
Assemble the side dishes on top of the rice and served in on top of banana leaf for the best and most authentic nasi lemak. Enjoy!
How Many Calories per Serving?
This recipe is only 338 calories per serving.
Serve Nasi Lemak With:
For a wholesome dinner, make the following dishes.
Nasi Lemak Recipe
Ingredients
- coconut milk steamed rice
- 2 cups rice
- 3 screwpine leaves (tie them into a knot as shown above)
- salt to taste
- 5.6 oz (158g) coconut milk (150 ml-180 ml)
- some water
Tamarind Juice
- 1 cup water
- tamarind pulp (size of a small ping pong ball)
Sambal Ikan Bilis (Dried Anchovies Sambal)
- 1/2 red onion
- 1 cup ikan bilis (dried anchovies)
- 1 clove garlic
- 4 shallots
- 10 dried chillies
- 1 teaspoon belacan (prawn paste)
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon sugar
Other ingredients
- 2 hard boiled eggs, cut into half
- 3 small fish (sardines or smelt fish)
- 1 small cucumber, cut into slices and then quartered
Instructions
- Just like making steamed rice, rinse your rice and drain. Add the coconut milk, a pinch of salt, and some water. Add the pandan leaves into the rice and cook your rice.
- Rinse the dried anchovies and drain the water. Fry the anchovies until they turn light brown and put aside.
- Pound the prawn paste together with shallots, garlic, and deseeded dried chilies with a mortar and pestle. You can also grind them with a food processor. Slice the red onion into rings.
- Soak the tamarind pulp in water for 15 minutes. Squeeze the tamarind constantly to extract the flavor into the water. Drain the pulp and save the tamarind juice.
- Heat some oil in a pan and fry the spice paste until fragrant. Add in the onion rings. Add in the ikan bilis and stir well. Add tamarind juice, salt, and sugar. Simmer on low heat until the gravy thickens. Set aside.
- Clean the small fish, cut them into half and season with salt. Deep fry. Cut the cucumber into slices and then quartered into four small pieces. Dish up the steamed coconut milk rice and pour some sambal ikan bilis on top of the rice. Serve with fried fish, cucumber slices, and hard-boiled eggs.
Followed it to a T, was awesome. Thank you for sharing
Can i reduce the amount of dried chilli scared it might be to hot!
Yes.
Hi There, how do I substitute the tamarind pulp for my tamarind concentrate. Mine is like a syrupy liquid so I’m not sure how much to use to make the tamarind juice. (https://smile.amazon.com/Tamicon-Tamarind-Paste-7oz/dp/B000JSQKL6/ref=sr_1_5?crid=1M8HQXN6D2CPQ&dchild=1&keywords=tamarind%2Bpaste&qid=1617005100&s=grocery&sprefix=tamarind%2Cgrocery%2C316&sr=1-5&th=1)
I have a question on making Sambal (and other Rempahs). I make HUGE batches of Sambal, Laksa Paste, Tom Yum Paste, etc., for my Asian restaurant and I normally buy dried Kashmiri chilis and then painstakingly de-seed, soak, and blend them before adding them in a big bowl of watery paste (mixed with all the other ingredients). Then it all just gets fried (after toasting the belacan). SO… if I were to able to substitute Kashmiri POWDER, I would be able to save a great deal of time and effort. But what is your opinion on that? Will it effect the overall flavour? Because (for example) in the case of fresh tumeric vs. powdered it would make a huge difference.
I know it will affect the texture of my rempahs slightly, but with all the other fibrous ingredients (like fresh chili, ground galangal, lemon grass, dry shrimp, etc), I don’t mind a minimal change in texture. But I just need the flavour and colour of the dry chili, because it really does make a difference. So, this time around, I’m weighing whether to purchase 5 kilos of dried chili vs 2-3 kilos of powdered (of the exact same variety).
I won’t use powder.
I would do a small batch & try the powder & see the difference.
Hi,
Do you soak the de-seeded dried chillies before blitzing them?
Yes.
Hello again! I’m not sure if I asked this already, but when making the coconut rice, does using a rice cooker change the recipe in anyway, in terms of ingredients or anything? Thank you.
It should be the same.
Would there be any way to substitute the dried chillies for chilli flakes?
Chili flakes are not ideal.
Thank you so much for this recipe Estelle, much love from Toronto, Canada! I’ve always come back to this recipe and it’s such a hit. I’m a bit lazy so sometimes I use 1 full red onion instead of shallots and not added belacan (I don’t always have some on hand) and it still tastes amazing! I’ve made it with shrimp too, so good!
Thanks for trying my recipe!!
Hi Estelle, I got my belacan from Amazon. Product is from Penang, Malaysia @ $7.99. Expensive here but make my sambal taste good.
Hi Bee, do you where can I find screwpine leaves/pandan in LA, US. Any alternative if cannot find one?
You can find in Vietnamese market.
Hi Bee,
Where to find Belacan in US. I couldn’t find it in Texas
You can find in some Vietnamese store but I am not sure about Texas.
Ranch 99 has frozen leaves
I got it off Amazon
Look for the belachan in the indonesian section, also from Ranch 99 store.