NASI GORENG WITH FRESH HOMEMADE STYLE CHIPS

HELLO EVERYONE!!! Hope all is well everywhere. It surely not much great at my end. Health did take a toll at my end. My mom went through laparoscopy and I had to go through a terrible tooth extraction session. Well my wisdom tooth did torture me a lot more than expected!!! Well I guess that’s called life and it can’t be really too smooth. Plus my son’s exams are literally killing me. It’s like EXAMARATHON going on in his school. Plus had to finish his school project. It was his holiday homework, but guess what, ‘the great mother, that’s ME ‘, who had to finish it. It was a relief when finally the project got submitted. 

Even now, I am sitting at Apollo Gleneagles, Kolkata, waiting for my son’s doctor, the paediatric nephrologist from 8am and trust me, it’s the most irritating job to sit and patiently wait with a kid for a whole day. Whole day, as even after reporting at 8am, I am in number 26 in the list of patients and it’s the same every time and I have been in touch with this doctor for my son’s sake for the last 6 years. So basically I am utilising this waiting time by drafting my recipe post today, 24th June, 2016. Today, for a change and after hectic three weeks, I am feeling relaxed even at the Day Care section of a Nursing Home. 

Anyway, let’s get back to the recipe that I will be posting today. It’s a classic South East Asian favourite, NASI GORENG. I had it the very first time in the Air Asia flight, in the year 2010, when we were travelling to Malaysia and had many a times through out my stay at Malaysia, Lankawi and later in 2011 & 2012 in Thailand, specifically in Bangkok!!! Well, a month back I was surfing through the food channels in the tv and suddenly came across this recipe in one of the episodes of Meals@1. Sorry I forgot the Chef’s name and I know that’s just so wrong, but I do have a bad memory, can’t help it!!! Well the Chef was showing how to cook NASI GORENG and the simplicity of the dish attracted me and so I had to pay attention to know the recipe. Trust me it’s the simplest recipe, I ever came across and instantly fell in love with it. Few days later on a Saturday, tried it out and it stood out to be the easiest cooking with stunning taste. I had to deviate a little from the actual recipe. Actually, the south East Asian cuisine are spicy with prominent hint of chillies in them and as I have a child to feed, so I skipped the part where green chilli paste was added in the dish while cooking. You guys , if you can then surely do add a teaspoon of green chilli paste as it will deliver the much anticipated kick!!! But trust me, even without it, it stood out to be as much tasty as it should be. So let’s get started with the recipe. I hope you guys would love it and  I insist , do try it out at home and let me know your thoughts in the comment section or in my Facebook page Improv and Explore. Do follow, like and share my posts and keep on supporting as always. 

P.S. The homemade style chips is my own addition and there is a story behind it. Well I am a die hard fan of My Kitchen Rules Australia. The season 4 episodes were airing in Colors Infinity and in one of the episodes, the couple team and the season 4 winner Dan and Steph, was cooking beefsteak with chips and of course, I was amazed by the technique used for the creation. At home before I did make French fries, but I saw the actual technique, I fell in love. So in that Saturday night, I made it a mission to make NASI GORENG with this homemade style chips with a yoghurt dip.

So today I will share the recipes of NASI GORENG and the fried chips. 

So let’s start the drill!!!

INGREDIENTS :

Basmati Rice – 250gm  (boil it to al Dante)

Chicken – 1 breast part deboned properly and cut into square thin cubes

Prawns – 9-10 (small ones)

Onions – 2 thinly sliced

Garlic – 9- 10 cloves mashed and finely chopped

Carrot – 1 thinly sliced

Cabbage – 1/4 of a big one thinly sliced

Capsicum – 1 whole thinly sliced

Mushroom – 200gms thinly sliced 

Salt and Black Pepper – for seasoning

Eggs – fried sunny side up

Dark Soya Sauce – 2-3 tbsp

Sweet Chilli Sauce – 2 tbsp

Green- Red Chillies – 5-6 Deseeded and finely chopped

Green Chilli Paste – 1 tsp (optional)

Red and Yellow Bell Peppers – finely chopped

Chilli Flakes – 1tsp

Fish Sauce – 2tbsp

Spring Onions – roughly sliced

Oil – 1 cup (canola or soya)

PROCEDURES :

1. Soak the basmati rice for an hour and boil it, strain it and keep it in refrigerator to get fine strands of rice.

2. Now cut the chicken breast into thin cubes. Take the prawns, clean them properly. Separate the head and the tails properly, keeping the flesh intact. Now heat a pan, put some oil in it. Now put the prawn heads and fry them for a minute. Now take the fried heads off the pan. The point of doing this is to give the oil a shrimps fragrant, which will give the dish a great flavour. Now fry the prawns in that oil till it turns pink. Do not over cook the shrimps. Now fry the chicken cubes in that oil till tender and crisp. Make the fried egg in that oil too. 

3. Now add some more oil in that pan and heat it.  Now add the green chillies and the chopped garlic and fry them. Do not burn them. Now add the chopped onions and carrot in it and fry them till tender. Here you can add the green chilli paste if you want your rice to be more spicy. 

4. Add the mushrooms and fry them further. Add the sweet chilli sauce, fish sauce and soya sauce and mix well. 

5. Now add the sliced cabbage and capsicum and the fried chicken and prawn pieces. For vegetarians, you can add fried tofu or cottage cheese instead of chicken and shrimp.

6. Now mix all well. Fry all this on high flame. The point of adding cabbage and capsicum later is to maintain their crunch and not over cook them. You can add red and yellow bell peppers then too. 

7. Now take the rice out of the refrigerator. Add the rice in the PAN and mix all of them properly, so that the sauces and the veggies, chicken and shrimps get evenly mixed with the rice. Season it with salt, black pepper and chilli flakes as per needed. 

8. Do not add salt before . We are using dark soya sauce, sweet chilli sauce and fish sauce and all of them have salt in them. Balance the dish with a a pinch of sugar in it. Moreover, you can see while frying the chicken and prawns , I didn’t season them. Well it’s the chef’s tip. He doesn’t want to lose the actual tastes of the core ingredients. And trust me he was right. 

9. Fry them properly and sprinkle some roughly chopped spring onions over it and serve hot with a fried egg Sunny side up on top of the rice. This is a wholesome dish with chicken, prawns and veggies and an egg so it hardly needs any accompaniment. But when I tried it for the first time, I was a bit sceptical about the taste of the dish so kept the crunchy chips handy plus I had to go on with the experiment on how to get the crunchy Chips at home. So thus made it and served it hot with NASI GORENG !!!

Now the recipe for Homemade Style Chips:

INGREDIENTS:

Potatoes – 4-5 medium or large ones nearly of same size.

Salt and Pepper – for seasoning

Oil- To deep fry the Potatoe wedges

Cold Water- 1 bowl

PROCEDURE:

1. Wash and peel the potatoes nice and proper. Now cut them in cigar shapes, keeping in mind to maintain the same width and length of the wedges.

2. Now boil some water in a PAN and submerge the potatoe wedges in to that boiling water and boil the potatoes for 6-7 minutes maximum.

3. Strain the Potatoe wedges and put them in the ice cold water bowl immediately. Let it be there for five minutes.

4. Take them out and spread them on a paper towel, kitchen tissue or newspaper and let it the soak the moisture out of it. This is the key step, ie, to dry the wedges. You have to dab all the moisture and wetness from the wedges.

5. Put the wedges in a bowl and keep it in the freezer for ten minutes .

6. Now in a deep bottom PAN, heat good amount of oil. When it becomes smoking hot, lower the flame. After a minute, take the wedges out of the freezer , sprinkle some salt and put them in the oil to fry them for a couple of minutes first. 

7. Take them out before it starts to turn golden.

8. Set aside for two minutes. Now turn the flame on high.  Then again finally put them back in the hot oil. And fry them till crispy golden ones.  Take them out of the oil and spread them on tissue paper or newspaper to strain the excess oil. That’s it. 

Trust me it’s a bit tedious but if you follow all these steps you will get the crunchy golden chips that you eat in restaurants always. Yes you might not succeed in the first attempt. But do not lose hope. Keep on trying and like after four five batches am sure you will master the art of making the crispy crunchy golden chips. 

A little surprise at the end ……The Yoghurt Dip!!! The refreshing, zesty, tangy and a simple dip and a very healthy one to balance out with the chips. You can eat this yoghurt dip just like that, with bread and any other fried stuff too. 

So you need: 

1. Yoghurt – 200 gm fresh homemade or store bought doesn’t matter. Try to hung it on a strainer or muslin clothe to discard the excess water. You can keep the water too if you are in a hurry.

2. Cucumber – 1 finely chopped.

3. Salt, black pepper and chilli flakes for seasoning.

4. Coriander sprigs roughly chopped.

5. Lemon juice and the zest.

6. Olive Oil.

Now in a bowl put the yoghurt, chopped cucumber, two tablespoon of lemon juice, grate the lemon peel to get the zest. Mix properly. Now season it with pinch of salt, black pepper and chilli flakes. Drizzle olive oil on top of it. Mix mix mix!!! Now serve it in small glass bowls . Drizzle a bit more olive oil and garnish it with coriander sprigs. Optional : You can add finely chopped chillies too. 

So many recipes which are budget friendly and easy to make too. That’s the motive of Improv and Explore. To reach out to everyone who can and cannot cook or are too lazy to cook or simply lazy like me. This is the reason why I thought of sharing my culinary skills with you all. 

Anyway, it’s already a long post won’t bore you guys anymore. 

Thanks for the love and appreciation. Please like, comment, follow and share my blog more and more along with my Facebook page. 

See you soon!!

Warm Regards

Pamela

XOXO

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