Rice · Recipe · Malaysia · Reference page

Nasi lemak

Name: Nasi lemak
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 45 min
Yield: 4
Ingredients: 400 g jasmine rice; 200 ml coconut milk; 3 piece pandan leaves, knotted; 1 pinch salt; cold water, to cover the rice by 2 cm; 3 piece long red chillies, seeded; 8 piece dried chillies, seeded and soaked in hot water 15 minutes; 25 g ikan bilis (dried anchovies); 1 piece brown onion, chopped; 1 piece lemongrass stalk, white part only, chopped; 1 piece 2 cm piece of ginger, peeled; 4 clove garlic, peeled; 2 piece candlenuts; 1 piece 2 cm cube of toasted belacan (shrimp paste); 125 ml vegetable oil; 60 ml tamarind pulp (¼ cup), mixed with 250 ml warm water; 250 ml warm water, for the tamarind; 1 tbsp palm sugar, grated; 2 tbsp sugar; 0.5 tsp salt; 200 g ikan bilis (dried anchovies), for frying; 140 g peanuts, shelled, skin on; oil for shallow-frying, about 1 cm in the wok; 2 piece short cucumbers, sliced; 4 piece eggs, hard-boiled and halved

Rice cooked with coconut milk and knotted pandan leaves, served with a sweet-sour chilli sambal, fried anchovies, peanuts, cucumber and boiled egg. Adam Liaw's version for SBS Food serves four; he calls it Malaysia's national dish.

Editorial illustration of the documented recipe; not a photograph of a kitchen-tested result.

Servings: 4
Preparation: 15 min
Cooking: 25 min
Resting: 5 min
Total: 45 min
Difficulty: Moderate

Equipment

Saucepan with a tight lid
Blender
Wok or frying pan

Substitutions

Pandan leaves → Leave them out; the rice loses its grassy aroma but is still good.
Candlenuts → Macadamia nuts are a common stand-in (this adds a tree-nut allergen).

Common mistakes

Lifting the lid during the 12 minutes: steam escapes and the rice stays hard.
Frying the sambal paste on high heat: it burns before it cooks.

Storage & reheating

Rice is best fresh; cool leftovers quickly and keep 1 day in the fridge. The sambal keeps a week in the fridge in a clean jar.

Safety

Cooked rice left warm can grow Bacillus cereus: cool leftovers within an hour and refrigerate. Allergens: fish (anchovies), crustaceans (belacan), peanuts, egg. Candlenuts are tree seeds; people with nut allergies should check.

Allergens

Fish · Crustaceans · Peanuts · Egg

Check labels: stock, bacon and sauces can contain further allergens.

Dietary

gluten-free

A national dish with many versions

Adam Liaw's recipe for SBS Food calls nasi lemak Malaysia's national dish and notes that there are many versions; what they share is coconut rice, a few crunchy accompaniments and a strongly flavoured sambal.

[1]

Coconut rice and sambal

The jasmine rice is cooked by the absorption method. Coconut milk and water cover it by 2 cm; the pan boils uncovered until the liquid is level with the rice, then is covered and left on very low heat for 12 minutes and off the heat for 5. Knotted pandan leaves perfume it as it cooks.

The sambal is a cooked paste. Chillies, dried anchovies, aromatics, candlenuts and shrimp paste are blended and fried slowly for about 10 minutes until the oil separates, then simmered with tamarind water and sugar until thick: hot, sour, sweet and salty at once.

[1]

How it connects

Place

origin Malaysia In preparation

Rice

made with Jasmine rice (Thai Hom Mali)

Nasi lemak

Equipment

Ingredients

Coconut rice

Sambal

To serve

Method