Some of the most popular Malaysian Breakfast

Nasi Lemak in Banana Leaf Wrap

Number one on the list of the most popular Malaysian breakfast would be the Nasi Lemak.  Mostly eaten in the morning but nowadays, nasi lemak has become so popular that it is even consumed late into the night. Malaysians crave for this fragrant coconut milk rice cuisine. Nasi lemak is so popular that it is sold everywhere and in nearly every coffee shop, even on the side walk of a strip mall, and by the roadside venders.

Roti Chennai with Sambal

Next on the list of the most popular breakfast is the Roti Chennai. Introduced to Malaysia by the Southern Indian immigrants, this crispy pan fried bread (pancake) is best eaten with sambal or curry as a dip. And this is also one of my favorite cuisine. Simple yet flavourful and tasty with sardine sambal that I prefer when eating this roti. In Vancouver, there are only the frozen pancakes that are available in the Asian grocery stores but back in Malaysia, roti Chennai are found everywhere.

Curry Puffs

The curry puff is also another popular Malay cake that is popular during breakfast. The curry puff is filled with potato curry and sometimes there are boiled eggs in the puffs too. During my recent trip back to Malaysia, I had the chance to eat as much of these Malaysian favorites as possible. Still missing out on some but I was happy to have at least eaten all these three simple but popular Malay and Indian cuisines.

Home Cooking the Popular Malaysian Nasi Lemak

Nasi Lemak

We decided to cook the famous Nasi Lemak yesterday. My wife actually suggested that we cook the Nasi Lemak for two meals. We can have the Nasi Lemak for breakfast and then take to work as lunch. Since, we have to wake up early anyways, because the kids are attending summer classes and their classes starts at eight. Our get up time has been set for six in the morning. We just need about an hour to cook a simple Nasi Lemak cuisine. So, we started with cooking the rice which actually takes the longest time to cook. Clean the rice, then add a canned of coconut milk with water to the level slightly above the top of the rice.

Traditional Coconut Milk Rice

Add a few slices of ginger, onions, a pinch of salt for taste, and a few leaves of the pine screw into the rice. Then press the button on the rice cooker to start cooking the rice. Once I have the rice cooking in the rice cooker, I got on to preparing the other components of the Nasi Lemak cuisine. I got one small frying pan on the stove to fry some eggs and another to fry a handful of anchovies. Once the anchovies were done, I fried some ground nuts. Then, slice the cucumber. As for the sambal (Chilli paste), I relied on the pre-pack sambal from Malaysia which I bought from T&T Supermarket. That really save me some time.

Home Cooked Nasi Lemak

I would usually prepare the chilli paste from scratch or sometimes fry some fish fillet or even cook a pot of curry chicken. But this time, just use the pre-pack chilli paste. This is the thing about Nasi Lemak, the cuisine itself is so diverse. There are so many really great recipes online and even in Malaysia where Nasi Lemak is the most popular cuisine, there are so many versions of Nasi Lemak cuisine. The real trick in Nasi Lemak is actaully the cooking of the rice itself. The other components that comes with the rice are just supplementary, which can also make the Nasi Lemak cuisine special.

Pulut Inti the Glutinous Rice Pudding with Palm Sugar and Shredded Coconut

A Traditional Rice Pudding

A few days ago one of our friends give us a dessert that I have not seen or tasted in a very long time. I was thrilled when my wife brought them home after her chance meeting with this friend. In Penang, this dessert is commonly found at food carts that sells Baba Nyonya cakes, fritters, puffs and all kinds of local delicacies. This is a popular item that is actually easy to cook. But the process may require slightly longer as the main component is glutinous rice. The glutinous must first be soaked for several hours to allow the glutinous rice to absorb water.

Pulut Inti

Therefore, when steamed the glutinous rice becomes soft and fluffy. My grandmother used to make this glutinous rice pudding for breakfast every so often. I have nearly forgotten about this particular glutinous rice pudding until just a few days ago. I remember, when cooking (steaming) the glutinous rice several of the ingredients used were the same to cooking the fragrant coconut milk rice (nasi lemak). There were screw pine leaves, coconut milk and water added into the pot with the glutinous rice when steaming. The palm sugar and shredded coconut flakes were separately prepared then garnished on top of the glutinous rice.

Traditional Pulut Inti

Basically, Inti means stuffing in Malay but this stuffing is not placed in the wrap in between two layers of glutinous rice just like sushi. But rather, it is applied on the top of the rice pudding to give it a flavourful sweet taste of coconut palm. This sugary liquid and coconut flakes paste were just a mixture of some liquified palm sugar to coconut flakes. The coconut flakes has to be the very fine ones.

Authentic Malaysian Nasi Lemak and Penang Char Keow Teow in the park

Malaysian Nasi Lemak

My jalan-jalan cari makan friends got together on the first weekend of July and celebrated Canada Day by going to Barnet Marine Park for a picnic. Each of us contributed to the picnic with fruits, cakes and other familiar home made desserts. One of the friend came with nasi lemak (coconut milk fragrant rice) specially wrapped with sambal anchovies, ground nuts, cut cucumbers and egg. Although simple, the nasi lemak cuisine was really tasty and flavourful. It was the best nasi lemak cuisine I have eaten in a long time. The nasi lemak was cooked with basmati rice, coconut milk, slices of ginger and screw pine leaves. Whereas the sambal was prepacked sambal paste from the brand "Chillies", which can be found in most Asian grocery stores.

Penang Char Keow Teow

The rest of the condiments were garnished on top of the fragrant rice and sambal before wrapping up the nasi lemak with banana leaf and parchment paper. Although the finished product looked really simple and takes less than five minutes to eat, the preparation, cooking and wrapping processes could have taken at least two hours. That too, did not account for the time sourcing for the ingredients.

Same with Penang Char Keow Teow, the finished product looks fairly simple but it takes a lot of time and effort to prepare. The ingredients for Char Keow Teow are flat rice noodles, shrimps, fish cakes, bean sprouts, Chinese sausages, chives, clams, eggs, cooking oil (or lard) and a special concoction of sauces.

Char Keow Teow in the wok

And besides that, the skill and experience to frying a really good plate of the famous Penang Char Keow Teow is never easy to follow or emulate. It is never a secret among my friends that I fry the Char Keow Teow in front of them, a plate at a time. The technique seems simple and I have even taught some of the friends. And anyone could have copied and learned the technique but till today nobody could.  So, I have to do all the frying myself. And that is hard work and stresses me out having to fry between thirty to sixty plates in two sometimes three hours depending on how big the group was. Also, for the benefit of my friends, I only do this occasionally and with a small group at a time. Therefore, every plate of the Char Keow Teow that I fry would be consistent. And I have a system which I follow diligently.

Most Popular Authentic Malaysian Home Cook Cuisine

Simple Coconut Milk Fragrant Rice Cuisine

Nasi Lemak is the most popular authentic Malaysian home cook cuisine. It is rice cooked with thick coconut milk, screw pine leaves and ginger to fragrant the rice. But the cuisines that is served with the fragrant rice can be as simple as boiled eggs and fried anchovies to as elaborate as curry beef rendang. The best, tastiest and flavourful nasi lemak in Malaysia are not necessarily found in three stars or fine dining restaurants but often at road side food carts. Or at some rundown coffee shops in some secluded villages.

Home Cooke Nasi Lemak

But one thing is definite, is that most Malaysians that knows how to cook, knows how to cook the nasi lemak and the simple type of cuisines that are served with it. I like my nasi lemak simple. Sometimes, even with a piece of fried fish, some fried anchovies, some fried ground nuts and a boiled egg. I sometimes marinate the fish fillet and shrimp in tamarind juice before frying. The tamarind juice will add flavour and taste. But as far as I know, only the Penang Baba Nyonya prepare the nasi lemak fried cuisines this way.

Dried Shrimp Sambal

Another cuisine item that is always served with nasi lemak is the chilli paste which we call the sambal. Then, there is the shrimp paste sambal, sardine sambal, plain sambal and so on. My favorite among the sambals for nasi lemak is undoubtedly the dried shrimp sambal. And for the simplest sambal, the sardine sambal is easiest to prepare and cook. The Nasi Lemak has always been synonymous to Malaysian cuisines and will remain so for a long time. There are plenty of recipes out on the internet on preparing and cooking nasi lemak.