I fell in love with this dish when I tasted it almost 15 years ago in a cultural fest.The flavor was so good as were its accompaniments. Since then I have always assumed it to be a vegetarian .It was after I entered the blogging world did I find out that the accompaniments are not vegetarian ones.


Since this dish is available nearby, I hardly make it at home.But then I changed my mind for this marathon and went ahead to make it hoping that it would taste just like the one I tasted years back and in the restaurant I have here near moms place.

Nasi Lemak is a dish that is usually served for breakfast.It is rice cooked in a fragrant coconut milk broth. The accompaniments are a spicy sambal, fried anchovies, fried groundnuts,boiled eggs and cucumber slices.

Many people outside Malaysia would find it a ridiculous option to have a rice based dish for breakfast. But I do know some other countries that have rice soups and rice based dishes as the first meal of the day.

For me, rice can be a part of the meal any time of the day. For many years I used to eat just curd rice for breakfast before going off the school and college. I found it very soothing to the tummy and since it is my favorite meal, I always had my breakfast if it was curd rice. Hence the ritual started.

So coming back to this Nasi Lemak, I made it a couple of days back which we enjoyed with fried groundnuts, spicy sambal and cucumber slices.

I used:

Rice- 1 cup
Coconut milk- 2 cups
Screw pine leaves- 3 tied as a knot / screw pine essence/ kewra water – a few drops
Ginger- 1″ piece , grated[optional]
Salt to taste

  • Wash rice and place the rice and all the other ingredients in a pressure cooker and cook for 12-15 minutes / till the rice is done. 
  • You can also cook this in a rice cooker / in a pan on the stove top. The timings will vary in each method.
  • One the pressure releases, fluff it up with a fork and serve with accompaniments of your choice.

 I served it with Sambal Tomat , fried groundnuts and cucumber slices.

Take a look at all that was served so far on The Buffet On Table…

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 56

Bon Appetit…

14 thoughts on “Malaysian Nasi Lemak”

  1. Sounds like a flavorful rice. I can not eat curd rice for breakfast but love Indian style fried rice or tempered rice that is made with leftover rice. That is one of my favorite breakfasts & my husband finds it amusing, how I could eat rice for breakfast.

  2. While I am not very fond of rice as such, I have had my share of lemon rice, tamarind rice and curd rice for breakfast..:)..in my MIL's place, I see the lemon rice being part of the BF still..guess it all depends on families..:)..good setup!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.