Nasi is the staple of the Indonesian diet. Plain white rice is eaten at every meal—breakfast, lunch and dinner. If you didn’t eat rice, Indonesians believe that you didn’t really eat.
Fried rice is made from steamed rice stir-fried in a wok, often with other ingredients, such as eggs, vegetables, and meat. It is sometimes served as the penultimate dish in Chinese banquets (just before dessert). As a home-cooked dish, fried rice typically is made with leftover ingredients from other dishes, leading to countless variations.
I hardly ever cook anything, so cooking even this simple dish is a huge deal and I got to make my momma proud by showing evidence of my first time cooking
nasi goreng all by myself.
There are a million ways to cook Indonesian fried rice, but here’s how they do it at my house.
Nasi Goreng Recipe (Bondowoso Style)
Prep time: Depends on how fast you can chop up the ingredients. I take a long time to cut things. It also cuts a lot of time if the rice is already cooked. We use leftover rice, while fresh new rice is cooking. (*A helpful reader pointed out that it’s important to use leftover rice because it has less moisture. The full explanation is here.)
Calories: We don’t believe in counting those in Indonesia, and we’re fans of the empty calories (i.e. krupuks).
Ingredients:
- A handful of shallots
- A handful of garlic
- 2 eggs
- A handful of red chili peppers
- One large red chili pepper
- About 5 cups of cooked rice
- Vegetable oil
- Salt
- Cucumber (optional)
My Mother really got into this project and insisted that we photograph the ingredients arranged in this green, leaf-shaped plate.
Steps:
1) Cut the red shallots, garlic, and red chili peppers.
My ibu laughed incessantly when I wept over the shallots as I cut them. I’m not used to it, ok?
2) Fry all this together using a wok-like pan and about ¼ cup of vegetable oil.
3) Once the mixture is sufficiently soft and cooked, remove it from the oil. Use a stone grinder to mash the ingredients;. Add about 1 teaspoon of salt.
Here’s my attempt at grinding…
and this is the result once my ibu lent a helping hand. She insists that I will learn eventually. Perhaps that is true, but it may not be worth the pain to my hand.
4) Crack two eggs and scramble in the same wok with same, leftover oil.
5) Once the eggs are scrambled, stir in about 5 cups of cooked, white rice.
The scrambled eggs are beneath the pile of rice, that later get mixed together.
6) Stir in the ground mixture of garlic, peppers and shallots.
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(Insert drum roll) Tad-ah, Nasi Goreng!
Done!
My Mother was so into this that she insisted on making cucumber flower garnish for a photo.Hers were lovely, and mine…a total fail. The good thing about mistakes is you get to eat them…but needless to say, I ate most of the cucumber. (Hence, clever angle of this plate.) Baby steps, Ibu, baby steps.
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