Let me first say that this is my favoritest - if there was such a word - dish! It’s a Malay rice dish which consists of rice cooked in coconut milk and pandan leaves, fried omelette, chili prawns (the bigger, the tastier!) or fried chicken or fried fish or fried sausages, with cucumber to kill the heat from the chili. An even simpler version of this dish which used to be sold wrapped in banana leaves for 50cents a packet (this was a loooonnnnggg time ago) had the rice, fried anchovies, one or two fried selar kuning (gold banded scad), some cucumbers and a huge dollop of sambal tumis. But nothing..and I mean NOTHING beats eating nasi lemak with sambal udang! So here’s a recipe taken from one of the cookbooks I have and turned out tasting yummylicious!

 Ingredients:

For the rice:
3 cups rice - long grain preferable - wash and drained
1 1/2 cans of coconut milk + 1/2 cup water
3 inch of fresh ginger - peeled and bruised
salt to taste
2 screwpine leaves - washed and tied into a knot

Method:

1. Combine all the ingredients above in the rice cooker and leave it to cook. To know if there is enough salt, the coconut milk should taste a little salty.
2. When the rice is cooked. Immediately open it, and stir the rice to fluff it. Turn off the rice cooker and keep it covered for about 10 minutes before serving.
3. Serve with sambal udang, cherry tomatoes, omelette and cucumber.

For the Sambal Udang:
1lb prawn - shell-on, deveined and washed
15 dried chili - cut slantwise, seeds removed and soaked in hot water for 10 minutes or until soft
1 large onion
1 clove garlic
1tbsp tamarind + 4 tbsp water - soaked for 5 minutes, mixed and strained
1/2 cup water
1tbsp sugar
salt to taste
3 tbsp canola oil

Method:

1. Grind the seeded and softened chili with the onion and garlic into a paste.
2. In a pot, heat the oil. When hot, fry the chili paste and fry till fragrant and the oil rises.
3. Combine tamarind juice and water in a bowl. Add it into the fragrant paste.
4. Add salt and sugar. Stir occasionally and continue cooking the gravy until it thickens.
5. Add the prawns and stir to coat completely with the paste.
6. When the prawns turn pink. Turn off the heat.
7. Leave it for 10 minutes to absorb the flavor before serving.

Tips:

• Here’s how I clean the prawn without removing the shells. Using a pair of kitchen scissors, cut off the the portion of the head where the eyes are. This will effectively remove the part of the head with the whiskers as well.
• Then, snip just a little bit of the tail. Snip the legs - you’ll probably be able to snip off all the legs in 2 snips.
• Then placing the scissors between the head and the body of the prawn, cut down the middle of the body abt 1/2 inch - 1inch depending on the size of the prawn. You can now remove the vein.
• Wash the prawns and you’re now ready to cook them.
• You can leave out the pandan leaf if you can’t find any. It just enhances the smell of the rice.
• To save time, you can prepare the chili beforehand and store it in a container in the refrigerator.
• To cut the cucumber as you see in the photo, cut the ends of the cucumber and remove the skin with a potato peeler. Using a fork, scrape down the sides of the cucumber lengthwise. Cut round thin slices.