NASI LEMAK

Nasi Lemak "Nasi" is Malay for rice and "lemak" creamy. So literally Nasi Lemak is Creamy Rice. But "Creamy Rice" means nothing to Singaporeans and Malaysians. Nasi Lemak is best and simply described as rice cooked with coconut milk!

But rice cooked with coconut milk by itself does not quite qualify as Nasi Lemak. True, the coconumt milk is the ingredient that makes nasi lemak rich and creamy. Without the coconut milk no matter what else you have to go with the rice, it is not nasi lemak. But it needs at least the following to qualify:

  1. sambal - which is dried chilli which you pound in a pestle and mortar, together with onion and tamarind and belachan (optional)
  2. fried crispy anchovies (deboned or whole, i.e. bones and all)
  3. selar kuning (selaroides leptolepsis) or yellow banded scad fried just so, so that it can be eaten bones and all and assures one with an adequate supply of calcium
  4. a small wafer of egg omelet or a big one or a whole egg fried over easy
  5. a few slices of cucumber (and/or tomato)

Nasi lemak is Malay in origin, but it is so popular it has been adopted by the Chinese as well and in Singapore you will find many Nasi Lemak outlets manned by Chinese as well. The Chinese have adopted Nasi Lemak and the popularity of the Chinese nasi lemak outlet might lead the uninitiated to believe that it is a Chinese invention.