Hi I'm Rich Harris and welcome back to my kitchen for another episode in my Back to
Basic series for videojug.
In this episode I'm going to be showing how to make Nasi Goreng.
It's a traditional Indonesian rice dish full of spice and flavor, and I"m going to be showing
you how to make the perfect rice.
[music]
I'm using Jasmine rice, which has got a lovely fragrant flavor and holds its shape really
really well, but it's quite starchy so it needs a good wash first.
So, tip the rice into a sieve.
Take it over to the sink to give it a good wash.
Washing the rice is really important.
Under cold water, keep rinsing the rice, and you want to look at the water underneath.
Once the water underneath is running clear you know that you've washed out all the starch.
And by getting out all that excess starch now we're going to make sure that the rice
doesn't stick together.
Take your washed rice, and just pop it into a pan.
And then just add some water.
You want to use a ratio of two parts rice to three parts water.
And then put the heat on.
There's a few stages to cooking rice.
The first stage is to get the pan really hot.
So set it at a really high heat and bring it to the boil.
As soon as the rice comes to the boil, turn it down to the very lowest heat, pop the lid
on, and then leave it to cook for ten minutes.
Right, so for the spice paste, you need to take some shallots and just roughly chop them.
And this spice paste is going to form the basis of the Nasi Goreng rice dish.
Take a food processor and just pop the shallots straight in.
Then add some garlic, and then some fresh red chili.
Now I like this quite fiery so I'm not going to remove the seeds, but if you don't want
too much heat just take the seeds and the white membrane out.
So just add the chilies in with the shallots, and for a full list of all the ingredients
just check out the description box.
Next are these, I've got some dried chilies.
And these add a really great kind of intense chili flavor, and also quite a smoky flavor
as well.
What I've done is taken these chilies and just poured boiling water over the top and
let them sit for about ten minutes, just to help them soften up.
Just take the soaked chilies and again just roughly chop them up.
And the last ingredient for the spice paste is this.
It's a ground roasted shrimp powder.
It's got a really kind of strong smell to it, but adds a great savory flavor and really
enhances all the other flavors in the dish.
So just about a teaspoon of that.
And just pop the lid on, and blitz it until smooth.
[blending]
So again the spice paste is ready, and now we can fry our chicken.
So I've got some oil heating in my wok here, getting really nice and hot.
I'm just going to add the chicken breasts in.
Just be very careful because the oil's really hot.
[oil popping]
And it can splatter a bit.
Just take a pair of tongs
[oil popping]
and just make sure the chicken's all submerged.
[oil popping]
While the chicken's frying, let's talk about the rice.
The rice had about ten minutes cooking, then take it off the heat and leave it to sit for
ten minutes.
Don't remove the lid, don't do anything, just let it sit and do its thing.
These are going to take about three or four minutes to cook all the way through, and they'll
be lovely and golden-brown on the outside.
Just pop the chicken onto a tray lined with some kitchen paper to drain and then get on
with cooking the rest of the ingredients.
So this has been steaming now for about ten minutes just off the heat.
It's the final stage of cooking that's really important with rice.
You need to leave the lid on and just let it relax, and just absorb those last little
bits of water.
So this is known as the absorption technique so you shouldn't have any water left in the
bottom of the pan.
So just take a fork and drag it through the grains of rice, just to kind of fluff everything
up.
And there you have it, the perfect rice, and really, this rule applies to any white rice,
Basmati, long grain, or Jasmine.
It's all really the same.
So this dish almost incorporates a kind of omelet.
So I just want to crack three eggs into a bowl, and to the eggs I'm just going to add
a dash of soy sauce
and also a splash of water.
What the water's going to do is kind of steam as the eggs fry so the eggs are going to get
really lovely and fluffy.
So just take a whisk and give everything a good old mix.
And the last thing to do is just to shred up this chicken, so just pull the chicken
apart with your forks.
This is my favorite kind of dish because actually you can use up leftovers.
So leftover roast chicken, leftover cooked rice,
and then you're just chucking in a load of chili heat and making it absolutely delicious.
For more simple, tasty recipes in my Back to Basic series, click the subscribe button.
Right, so now it's time to put this bad boy together.
The spice paste goes into a hot wok.
[sizzle]
You want a good sizzle.
Fry this up for about two or three minutes just until it starts to get a lovely kind
of golden-brown color.
Move the paste right up to one side of the wok, and now it's time to add the eggs.
Just keep moving the egg around gently just to kind of make an omelet.
Just as the omelet's pretty much cooked,
push it to the side, and then quickly mix it with the rest of the spice paste.
And then add the chicken.
Now because the chicken's already cooked, all you really need to do at this stage is
just warm it through.
Once the chicken's warmed through add the ketchup malles.
Now this is a great indonesian sort of thickened sweet soy sauce and just works really well
in this dish.
Give everything a quick stir,
and then add the rice.
Now just keep moving everything around the pan, just so that nothing sticks and everything
gets really well incorporated.
So just keep mixing it together until everything's the same color.
And once the rice is warmed through, turn off the heat and add spring onions.
And the reason I turn off the heat is I want those spring onions to still retain a bit
of crunch, so we're not really cooking them, we're just warming them through.
So there we go, that is ready to serve up and looking great.
Just spoon some of the rice into a bowl, and then in traditional style I'm just going to
top it with a crispy fried egg, some fine-chopped red chili, just for a bit of extra heat, and
some deep-fried crispy shallots.
They add a lovely crunch at the end.
And finally just to cool down all that chili heat, just a few slices of cucumber.
And there we have it, my Nasi Goreng with perfect rice.
All that's left to do now is have a little taste.
That is delicious.
There's a great sort of fiery kick from the chili, there's that wonderful sort of sweetness
from the ketchup malles, and there's that rice that holds everything together.
It's a delicious dish, it's really simple, and it's perfect if you had a couple the night
before.
Well that's it for me for this series, but I hope you've enjoyed recipes and more importantly
learned some basic skills to help you start creating some magic in your own kitchen.
I look forward to seeing you back again soon.
[music]