My first NASI LEMAK in Houghton!

I miss my nasi lemak very much, so I was determined to make Nasi Lemak during this holidays! I even bought "ikan bilis" when I was in Chicago's Chinatown. Can't find it here. Invited a few friends over for dinner.

I started cooking at 4.30pm and ended at 8.05pm.

Tonight, I prepared Nasi Lemak (Kenny washed and prepared the rice, I only added coconut milk and salt to it), Chicken Curry with Potatoes (senior prepared the chicken and potatoes, I cooked), Fish Curry (all by myself), Ikan Bilis (by me), Hard boiled egg (Kenny) and Sambal.

For the rice, it was pretty simple, just rice, water, coconut milk and salt. The one major ingredient we missed out for the rice was pandan leaves. Can't find it here.


Next, I washed some ikan bilis and then dried it up with a kitchen towel. I let it air in the room to let it dry even more. Next, I deep fried the ikan bilis in heated oil and waited till it became golden brown. I am proud that it was just right, crispy the way I like it without burning! No photo here, but later you will see some ikan bilis in the overall photo of tonight's meal.

Now for the curry...

I used some kinda curry paste which I got from another senior of mine. There was chicken curry and fish curry paste. The stuff I put in for the Chicken Curry was of course, chicken, onions, potatoes, more curry powder, garam masala, salt, sugar, star anise, cinnamon sticks, fresh lemon grass sticks and last but not least, coconut milk.

Yeap... There was a lot of Curry. You can barely see the potatoes or chicken.

Next up, Fish Curry

For the fish curry, I used one Tilapia Fish, 2 slices of "ma yao" fish, onions, egg plant, tomatoes, garam masala, cinnamon sticks, star anise, lemon grass sticks, salt, sugar, water, coconut milk. The fish curry paste was extra spicy, so I didn't add curry powder. The fish was bought frozen from a international grocery shop knows as 'World Foods' here.

I first pan fried the fish to reduce the "fishy" smell and also to speed up the cooking process for the curry. Before frying the fish, I dried them and coated them with a thin layer of flour.

The final product...


The hardest part for cooking the fish curry was cutting up the fish. I bought it frozen and it hasn't been cut. I thawed the fish but it was hard to cut through the bones even with a meat knife. Maybe the knife wasn't sharp enough.

Next for the sambal

I blended dry chilli (first soaked till soft in hot water), one tomato, garlic, onions, salt and sugar. Missing here is belacan and tamarind juice. Once they were well mixed and fine, I fried it over some oil. Fry for some time untill the sambal starts drying up.


As you can see from the above photo, I was a lil too generous with the dry chilli and ended up with a really super duper spicy sambal.




The one scary part when cooking the sambal is that when it boils it starts splattering everywhere. I had to wear an apron to protect my t-shirt.

Another friend of ours stir fried some vegetables to neutralize this meal.

Voila... One Spicy Malaysian Dinner...


See the ikan bilis on the small plate(left). Hidden behind was the sliced hard boiled eggs.

This is me when I was cooking the Chicken Curry





The Chicken and Fish Curry.

Overall, it was a satisfying meal. Would have been better if I had all the necessary ingredients but it was definitely better thann nothing. Got thumbs up from my guests, so I feel happy too!

P.S. I bought fresh curry leaves to cook the curry, but guess what? I forgotten to put them in!