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].