Cooking Nasi Goreng : Basic

A simple menu that I'll miss when away from home and away from Indonesia is Nasi Goreng (Fried Rice). Some chinese or malay or even indian food stall in Singapore may serve fried rice as well, but It's just different from what I normally have at home.

Cooking Fried Rice is a tricky yet fun for me. I can cook with 101 possibilities, mix and match the ingredients we have in fridge, I can cook left over rice, and it's a meal that you can eat without any additional dish.

You may find the ingredients are too many or maybe you don't have all in your fridge. Dont worry, it's just a basic recipe and you may modify it. However, some ingredients may be significant in creating a homy taste Nasi Goreng.

Here we go!

Tools:

1. Wok or non-sticky pan
2. Cooking Spatula
3. Knife
4. Chopping Board

Ingredients:

1. Cooking oil -- 7 tbsp
2. Chopped Garlic -- 2 tbsp or more
3. Chopped Shallot -- 2 tbsp or more
4. Meat: Frozen chicken sausage -- 4 pcs
5. Vege.: Carrot -- a half carrot
6. Light soy sauce -- 3 tbsp
7. Sweet soy sauce -- 2 tbsp
8. Tomato sauce -- 2 tbsp
9. Salt -- 2 pinch
10. Left over rice -- 1 full plate
11. Egg beaten-- 2 pcs
12. Chopped spring onion -- 2 stalk

Steps:

1. Prepare pan/wok on stove and turn on fire. Make sure there is no water drop on pan before pour the cooking oil. Water an oil only in a hot pan is not a good combination for cooking.
2. Heat oil, then put shallot and garlic as soon as you think that the oil is hot. Do not let the oil produce smoke, it means you will burn the shallot and garlic immediately.
3. Put chopped carrot and sausage. If you prepare raw meat, cook it first before combine them with carrot.
4. Stir until carrot change color into slightly lighter color. Put light soya sauce, rice, sweet soy sauce and tomato sauce. Stirr well until the rice mix evenly with all souce.
5. In this stage try to put a small fire, since rice will get burnt easily. Do not tempted to add any water if they do not blend easily. Keep stirring, take your time. Turn off the fire if needed.
6. Put salt and pepper. Stir again for a while.
7. Pour beaten eggs on the outer line of fried rice (as shown in picture). In this moment, stop stirring the rice, an observe until the eggs slightly cooked and solid, then start to mix again.
8. Taste your fried rice, if it's not salty, you may add salt or light soy sauce accordingly.
9. After everything is done, put spring onion on last step. Some of you may hate spring onion and think that it's not significant. But believe me it does contribute to the fried rice perfection. Stir again until the spring onion mix well in the rice.

Tips:

1. Try you best to use left over rice. If you only have just cooked rice, cool it first before using. Do you know what is the effect? :)
2. Do not use too little oil, it will give you problem in mixing all the ingredients. If you're a health conscious people and want to avoid oil, do not eat fried rice. Btw oil is good to dilute vitamin A in carrot :)
3. I think the main difference between indonesian style fried rice and others are the amount of shallot, garlic and the sweet soy sauce. Please have these ingredients to make a nice nasi goreng.
4. Amount of ingredient is important for balance of fried rice, but the most important thing in cooking fried rice is the sequence. The best sequence that i know in cooking fried rice so far is this one. Some prefer to put eggs in earlier stage, but i prefer to put later.
5. Keep cooking and you'll know which sequence or amount of ingredient is suitable or which ingredient you may omit.
6. Mixing rice and those ingredients are sometimes frustrating for beginners. So I suggest to start with 1-2 portion only. Btw my recipe is enough for 2 persons or 3/4 small portions. Use loose rice and put wok in low heat to make stirring easier.

The Fried Rice fail? Dont worry, I was there before.. :)
It wont taste that bad because self cooked food will taste better ^^

Please share to me you experience or experiment in cooking fried rice. I'll be happy to hear from you.

First timer and have any problem? Please share, me or any of reader may help you to solve the problem.

Happy Cooking..!

Cooking Steam Rice : Basic

As an Indonesian, steam rice is a compulsory  item in my meal. Some of you maybe cannot imagine how come rice is a must in a meal. Noodle might be treated as dish, and burger set only a brunch or tea time portion. I also cannot explain why. But most of Indonesian, or some Asians will feel that they never took any meal if they don't have rice. Therefore, in my first post I'll briefly write a post how to cook that simple steam rice.

I'm sure if you are sticking to read my post, you are either never steam rice before - this is your first time cooking steam rice or just curious about my writing in this blog *grin*

Tools:

1. Rice cooker

Ingredients:

1. Normal Plain Rice   -- 2 cups
2. Water  -- adjust

Steps:

1. Measure 2 cups of rice and pour into rice cooker pot.
2. Clean the rice grain from unwanted materials, like tiny stones, rice skin, etc.
3. Rinse rice grains with water twice.
4. Add clean water to the pot up to the 2 cups marking.
5. Cook rice until the rice cooker lever move to 'reheat'.
6. Steam rice is ready for 3 portion.

Notes:

1. If you do not have any measuring cup, just use any amount of rice that you need, and pour water in the last step until reach about 2 cm from the rice surface.
2. Result may be vary due to amount of water and type of rice. You may adjust the soft-hard level of cooked rice according to your preference. Less water for harder texture, and more for softer/more moisture.
3. If you want to cook brown rice or non-polished rice, please soak the rice grain at least 1 hour before cooking. Left rice to soak overnight will also work. Put more water since these type of rice will absorb more water. Otherwise, using this recipe will result into hard texture of rice.
4. Do not use glutinous rice (beras ketan in Bahasa Indonesia) , it will end with different result (sticky). In case you are not familiar with how sticky rice looks like, it is whiter than other rice. Normal rice looks a bit translucent compared to glutinous rice.

(feel free to ask if you have any question and I will try to respond as soon as i can)

Our Cooking Lab

OurCookingLab is my place to share my cooking experience especially for the beginner out there.

The idea behind naming 'lab' to this blog is to encourage all of us to keep learning and improving our cooking skill regardless how low or high we're now. Feedback and tips are warmly welcomed in every corner of this blog.

For me, cooking not only for the sake of cooking and eating itself. It is one of my form of enjoyment, relieving stress, socializing with family and friends, or simply to expand our creativity and knowledge about food process and its ingredients. Hopefully this blog may motivate and inspire you to start a 'kitchen lab' and cook by your own.