Nasi Lemak - Prawn Sambal

We prepared this a few times over the last few weeks. Relatives coming over for a homemade Nasi Lemak lunch. Nasi Lemak made at home just taste extra good. You know the ingredients are fresh and there is no additives. The rice, fragrant and steaming hot right out of the rice cooker gives it an extra uumph!

Cooking at home the last 6 months has been easy because we no longer have to wash dishes. We got that part out by not getting a maid, but a dishwasher! Yup, it saves us water too! We no longer squabble over who shall do the dishes. Now, we have strong opinions on how things are to be stacked. Oh well, quarrels don't stop. LOL.

It was early Saturday morning. Mum and Aunt made an appointment to meet at the market to buy ingredients. I followed them to be their 'Siri'. Siri, please carry this. Siri, please collect this and that from who and who. Siri please pay for this.



This was the Nasi Lemak! 
I decided to document the prawn sambal cooking process and share with you all!




We had 1/2 kilo of fresh prawns. Get small to medium size ones. Too big and the sambal won't look correct. Mum don't want to get the smaller ones, so she does not need to peel so many prawns!



Two onions.



Chilli Boh. We just got the freshly made ones from the fresh food market. To simplify the process.

If you are up to it, you can soak dried chilli a day ahead, clean them and mix them with fresh chilli and other spices to make your own chilli boh.





Mum's recipe does not only have Chilli Boh, she adds in Chilli Powder too.
This is to make it extra spicy!




Heat your kuali. Add enough oil, usually 4 to 5 tablespoons of oil. You need enough oil to bring out the fragrance. It's called 'naik minyak' in Malay.

Fry the Chilli boh first for a few minutes. On medium high to high heat. I assure you, you will choke and cough when you do this! The spiciness will fill the air. Keep stirring before it chars! Around 5 minutes of so, add in 2 to 3 tablespoons of the chilli powder. Fry it a while more and the mixture becomes like a lump. It will smell superb!




Add in the onions!



Looking good eh?




Next we got to add in the Assam Water.

This was about a 2 tablespoon of Assam and we add it into a bowl of water to dissolve it and get the Assam Juice.




Pour it in and the whole mixture turns even more fragrant!




Don't you think it is looking so delicious already?
Mum prefers a dryer version, but I like a wetter version. So we compromised and we settled on this! It's really up to you!

Add in some probably around 2 teaspoons of salt and 2 teaspoons of sugar.



Add in the prawns!



Simmer it for a few minutes, you get the prawn sambal!



After cooking it, you can't wait to have lunch!
We had to wait for 2 hours until lunch time when our guests arrived.

Mum prepared the cucumbers and the hard boiled eggs.
Aunt came over with prawn and fish keropok, fried ikan bilis (anchovies) and fried peanuts that she prepared at her home.



Tempting?



We have been quite busy and for those friends who are asking when are we having the house warming? The answer is "soon". This is a preview of what we will serve!

OldTown White Coffee @ Bukit Timah

This was our dinner at OldTown White Coffee at Yuk Tong Avenue, near Cheong Chin Nam Road at Bukit Timah.

It was a humid night and of all things, we wanted to have Nasi Lemak. We could go to food centres and get some Nasi Lemak, but our minds kept telling us, "no you will regret going to the food centre with no air-con".

So, we thought of OldTown White Coffee!

Their Nasi Lemak is not too bad lah. Not the best around, but on a hungry night this was what we could think of and it's not too far from home.

We like it because it has everything. Peanuts, crispy fried ikan bilis, fried chicken wings, falf-boiled egg, cucumbers and generous of sambal.




I had my nasi lemak with OldTown's cold chocolate drink.
Sis had it with a hot lemon tea.



OldTown White Coffee
9 Yuk Tong Avenue
Singapore 596314

Nasi Lemak Buffet @ NUSS Kent Ridge Guild House

Was it "Eat Nasi Lemak Week" last week?

On Thursday I ate Nasi Lemak. On Friday, I had Nasi Lemak again! Friday's Nasi Lemak was a Nasi Lemak Buffet! It was all because a friend who likes to eat rice wanted to go for it. He was buzzing me on msn since last month, when we found out it was Nasi Lemak buffet in September.




5 of us went to the buffet. This was how I 'tackle' the buffet. Just a bit of everything. 3 cucumbers, 2 pieces of Ayam Masak Merah (I like this), 2 rings of sotong, 1 tiny sausage, some achar.



A piece of rendang (which was very nice), a piece of fried egg (which happen to taste very good too), a scoop of sambal mussels and the sambal chilli.



Hehe... I took more ingredients on another plate. A fried fish, fried lao su fen, fish cakes, jiu hu eng chai, luncheon meat, fried chicken wing and hard boil egg.

When I finish eating them, I am already stuffed. I think it's quite impossible to eat a lot for a Nasi Lemak buffet. 



We also had some Kuih Pai Tee. Beautiful isn't it?



Laksa is included as part of the buffet too. (the Laksa was nice!)



I certainly did not attempt to try everything. I don't want the suffer the 'i can't sleep because i ate too much' feeling. I just ate the things I felt like eating. :-)

But our 'rice friend', plonked so much things on his plate! LOL.
Guess what? The next day he texted me and said, next time he's not going for buffet at night. He could not sleep! He was feeling so bloated the whole night!




I realise that I did not eat most of the things he took on his plate.
Get a Guild House member to bring you in if you want to try it. :-)

Not the best Nasi Lemak in town, our 'rice friend' said the rice was not fragrant enough. But if you are in for variety of dishes for your Nasi Lemak, then it's worth coming. There are more things like Roti Jala and various stew that we had no more room in our stomach to try!


Cafe on the Ridge
NUSS- Kent Ridge Guild House
9 Kent Ridge Drive
Singapore 119241

Nasi Lemak @ CSIT Staff Canteen - Science Park 3

This was Thursday's lunch. We were wondering what to eat, and then a colleague suddenly remembered it's Thursday. His wife works in Science Park II and had told him that the Nasi Lemak (that's the meal of the day on Thursday) at the CSIT Staff Canteen is not bad.

So he asked us to try it, and so we did. We boarded the free Science Park lunch shuttle and went over to Science Park II/III. We alighted at the last stop, and walked a few steps to CSIT.

This place gets very crowded!

The rice is not too bad, and there's a whole lot of 'stuff' on it for $3.50.

1 fried chicken wing, some sambal sotong, sambal goreng, lots of nasi lemak chilli on a cucumber,



ikan bilis and nuts, otak-otak and a fried egg.



It's only available on Thursday I was told. It's not the best nasi lemak in Singapore, but good enough for people who are bored of eating the same old thing in the NUS/NUH/Science Park area. :-)

I guess most of you won't come all the way here unless you work in NUS, NUH or Science Parks 1, 2 or 3. There's a shuttle service (that's very punctual) that brings people to Science Park 3 from NUS/NUH, the different Science Parks.


CSIT Building Staff Canteen,
Science Park 3
30 Science Park Road,
Singapore 117512

The 2 Number 1 Nasi Lemak @ Adam Road Food Centre

Which is the real Number 1 Nasi Lemak at Adam Road? The answer is Up To You! It's up to your preference really! My colleagues and I, we were sitting down the other day looking which one has a longer queue, we realized both have equally long queues.

All we noticed is that the left queue moves slower because the makcik takes around 1 minute to serve 1 person. (Yes, my colleague timed it.) The right queue clears very quickly. We did not bother to time because it was quick!



Both stalls proudly proclaim they are No. 1.



This one says No. 2 Adam Road is the No. 1 Nasi Lemak.



Anyway, one colleague eat this quite often and he went to queue up at the left stall. We asked him why the left stall? The reason..... Kacang! Only the left stall serves kacang, and he likes kacang in his Nasi Lemak. So he ordered Adam's Special. $4



Another colleague, consider himself a purist and only queues at the No. 2 stall.
He ordered the Fish Meal $3 plus an otak otak for an extra $1.



Then who ate this? Me! After eating the tiny portion of Mee Rebus (from yesterday's post) I was still hungry. So I gave in to gluttony. I had the Chicken Wing Meal $3.



I shall not incur the wrath of both camps. Both sides have their own fans. Which is your favourite?

No 1 Adam's Nasi Lemak
Stall No. 1
Adam Road Food Centre
2 Adam Road
Singapore 289876

Selera Rasa Nasi Lemak
Stall No. 2
Adam Road Food Centre
2 Adam Road
Singapore 289876

Nasi Lemak, Avocado Juice @ Alexandra Village Food Centre

Last Thursday, one colleague wanted to restring his badminton racket. So off we went to Alexandra Village Food Centre to have lunch.

We walked around, and not knowing what to eat, we saw a nasi lemak stall, and thought why not? There was not queue, but suddenly, a long queue formed.

Anyway, it was clearing quite fast, and we ordered the nasi lemak. We took the Royal Set. This is how it looks like. The egg was fried on the spot when ordered. The rice is different from the normal rice right? The luncheon meat and sambal is hidden in this picture.



Another colleague offered to buy us drinks. She ordered Avocado Juice. There are two stalls selling the same thing and you can see fierce competition. Both are good. It's your choice which stall you prefer :-)



Have a great weekend!