Category: Rice

Asian Dishes, Malay, Rice

Nasi Goreng Kampong Hijau: Green Fried Rice

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Nasi goreng kampong hijau or village green fried rice in its literal translation, is a typical Malay home cooked dish when you’re just too lazy to cook white rice with all its accompaniments. You know Malay cooking is tedious. You have the rice but you need a protein gravy dish. And if that’s not enough, it needs to be accompanied with a vegetable dish and sambals. So when tired or lazy, this one dish fried rice is a fixture once a week 😌

I love eating the green chilli version. It’s more fragrant.

In a chopper or blender, blend not too finely green chillies, some green chilli padi (for fiery heat), 3-4 garlic, onions (1 large) and a handful of ikan bilis or dried anchovies and a tablespoon of ground belacan (fermented shrimp ubiquitous is SEA cuisine).

Once the paste is done, the rest is easy. Fry paste in oil over medium heat till cooked and then add an egg in and rice. Mix well.

I use basmati rice hence the longer grains. And to serve, vegetables fried with beef and omelette. It’s usually served with keropok, or fish crackers but now is not the time for frying because of our busy work schedules.

Asian Dishes, Japanese/Korean, Rice, Seafood

Japanese and Salmon Furikake Rice Balls

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I’ve been forced to cook now for my meals at work.

So last night I made a simple dish I learnt from my friend.

Cook Japanese rice. And then fry breaded salmon. The air fryer works perfectly! I used Louisiana Fish Fry crumbs (no need to add water) to my salmon pieces and then air fry till golden and cooked.

Then mix fish and rice together. Add furikake (one satchet) and one teaspoon of Japanese mayonnaise. Add salt to taste.

Shape into balls, but for me, I used the plastic star mold bought from Daiso years ago when the kids were little.

At work today, I ate it with the salmon spread which I should have mixed un with the rice. Next time, I will do this once I’ve purchased this delicious spread!

Asian Dishes, food, Malay, Rice

Ketupat and Rendang and more…

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It’s Eid or what we call Hari Raya in this part of the world. And though none of my family members celebrate by making and eating ketupat or rice cakes, we always welcome them if anyone would pass them to us.

And someone did to me! A good Malay friend passed some of the ketupats her family makes together with all the trimmings.

Ketupat is usually served with beef rendang, sambal tumis sotong, sambal goreng or sambal godok. All these are traditional dishes that go so well together with the rice cake but also served a lot on a daily basis too! So I never understood why the longing for these dishes especially on Hari Raya!

Ketupat is made by making the casing first. My late father used to be able to weave them. The casings are made from coconut leaves. After the casing is made, rice is poured halfway into the casing and then boiled for hours and then hung to dry.

My goal is to share because I don’t really know how to weave the casings but there are many videos on YouTube by real Malays to show how it’s done.

Below are pictures of the wonderful food my friend passed to us the night before Hari Raya. Enjoy watching and maybe googling more about how the Malays celebrate Eid! ☺️

Rice

Saffronish Rice

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I realise you can make any flavoured rice if you have …flavours at hand. No measurements needed. I’ve turned into my mother!

So yesterday I made rice flavoured with onions, bay leaves, cinnamon stick, chicken stock and saffron. The result was great. I stirred in some good quality long raisins and served the rice with baked zaatar chicken. And voila! There were no leftovers! 😂

Asian Dishes, Rice

Kabsah…sorta…

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Today I made arabic rice. If the lemon rice was a tad salty, this rice was a tad bland. Man, how I loathe salting. It’s so hard to get it right!


And if yesterday I used Chef Wan’s recipe, today I used Chef Ammar’s spice mix. The mix is really fragrant!


I had a rack of lamb that had to be cleaned off and hence the little bits of meat were added to the rice mix for that added flavour. 


The only thing that would make this dish from normal to stellar would benif I ahd smoked the rice. I will need to buy instant charcoal pieces for this method. 

Overall, I think I did fairly OK with this dish. Will make it again, smoked next time. 👩🏽‍🍳