Nasi Lemak

To cook the rice, add the rice, coconut milk and lemongrass into a saucepan. Settle the rice evenly into the bottom of the saucepan. Place your finger on top of the rice and add enough water so that the liquid comes up to your first knuckle. Place over a medium-high heat and simmer for 10 minutes or until most of the liquid has evaporated. Then place a lid on and reduce the heat to low and cook for another 2 minutes. Then turn the heat off and allow to sit, covered, for 10 minutes. 

For the spicy ikan bilis sambal, soak the dried chillies in hot water for 15 minutes to soften. Drain the chillies squeezing out the excess liquid. Reserve the soaking liquid. 

Place the soaked chillies in the bowl of a small food processor along with the fresh chilli, shallot, garlic and shrimp paste. Process until a coarse paste forms. 

Heat the oil in a wok over high heat. Add the anchovies and cook, stirring often, for 5 minutes or until crisp. Use a slotted spoon to transfer to a plate lined with paper towel. Add the onion to the pan. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes. Transfer to the plate with the anchovies. Add the chilli mixture to the wok. Reduce heat to low. Cook, stirring often for 5 minutes or until the red oil rises to the surface. Add the sugar, tamarind and 2 tablespoons of the chilli soaking liquid. Simmer for 5 minutes or until reduced. Stir in the anchovies and onion. Transfer to a bowl.  

When ready to serve, use a fork to fluff up the coconut rice. Serve the rice with the spicy ikan bilis sambal, peanuts, egg, cucumber and ayam goreng (if using). 

– Typically, this rice is infused with pandan leaves, but I use lemongrass or ginger slices when I can’t find pandan leaves at my Asian grocery store. You could also just do coconut milk without the extra aromatics. 

– Ikan bilis are a dried anchovy fish that are sold through Asian grocery stores. They can be sold ‘fresh’ frozen (in which case you need to cook them as I have here) or they can be bought shelf-stable and already fried, in which case you can just add them into the sambal without having to fry them first.