Nasi Lemak /Rice in cream

I've been craving for some Nasi Lemak for a couple of weeks now but have not had the opportunity to make them. Hubby got up in the morning and decided to make a huge pot of chili and I knew that he was going to want to eat his chili for dinner so I had to choose if I wanted to eat chili or something else. I decided to make Nasi Lemak since I've been wanting them for quite some time.

Nasi Lemak or Coconut Rice

Ingredients
2 cups of rice
3 screwpine leaves (tie them into a knot as shown above)
Salt to taste
1 small can of coconut milk (5.6 oz size) or 3/4 Cup of Coconut Milk
Some water

Tamarind Juice

1 cup of water
Tamarind pulp (size of a small ping pong ball)

Sambal

One onion

4 shallots

3 cloves of galic

10-15 Chilies

2-3 chili padi

a pinch of salt

1 tablespoon of belachan (prawn paste)

1 tablespoon sugar

Slice onion

Additional

Ikan Bilis/Anchovies *I put a handful in a bowl, pour oil over it and microwave them until crispy (about 7 minutes with my microwave)

Cucumber

Hard Boil Egg

Method

1. Place washed rice, salt and knotted pandan leaves in an electric rice cooker.

2. Pour coconut milk and water over the rice and leave to soak for about 30 minutes

3. Proceeded to cook the rice and leave in the rice cooker to keep warm until ready to eat.

4. Grind Onion, Shallot and garlic in food processor.

5. Grind Chili and chili padi.

6. 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.

7. Heat oil in wok and saute blended onions until fragrant.

8. Add in chili paste and belachan then continue to cook them on low fire for about 30 minutes

9. Add tamarind juice and sugar and continue cooking them on low fire for about 20 minutes.

10. Add in slice onions.

This dish did satisfy my cravings for some nasi lemak but I wish that my sambal was spicier. I used a mixture of red chili and green jalapeno> Even though I had a handful of chili padi but it was not spicy enough for me I think next time I will use all red chili plus a handful of red chili padi. I think my chili padi needs to produce more chili before I can make sambal again because I'm actually running low on chilies unless I buy them from the store.

I think it would go really yummy if I had some cucumber too but since I decided to make this last minute I was not going to run to the store to just buy a cucumber.

I'm really glad that I learned to fry the ikan bilis in the microwave because frying onions, garlic and now ikan bilis in the microwave is such and easy task. I just put it in and make sure that it doesn't burn or over cook that's all.

My house did stunk. My hubby was complaining about the smell from my ikan bilis and finally my sambal. I'm glad that I remembered to shut the bedroom door but the whole house still smells of sambal but luckily Monday hubby goes to work and the weather is nice which would allow me to open the windows to air out the house!