Nasi Lemak

Rinse the rice several times, drain it well, then put it in the rice cooker or a heavy pot with the coconut milk, water, salt, ginger and knotted pandan. Cook as you normally cook rice.

💡 Coconut milk scorches more easily than water. In a pot, keep the heat low once it comes to a simmer and do not lift the lid to peek.

While the rice cooks, make the sambal. Drain the soaked chillies and blend them with the shallots, garlic, belacan and half the anchovies into a coarse paste. A little water helps the blades catch.

Fry the remaining anchovies in the oil over medium heat until they are golden and rattle in the pan, about 3 minutes. Lift them out onto paper and keep that oil.

💡 The anchovies keep browning after they leave the oil, so pull them one shade lighter than you want them.

Fry the chilli paste in that same oil over medium-low heat. This is the long part: 20 to 25 minutes of patient stirring until the paste darkens from bright red to brick, and a slick of red oil separates and pools at the edge of the pan.

💡 That separated oil — pecah minyak — is the single sign that the sambal is done. Stop early and it tastes raw and sharp; there is no shortcut for it.

Stir in the tamarind water, palm sugar and onion rings. Simmer 5 more minutes until the onion softens and the sambal is thick, glossy and sweet-sour-hot all at once. Season with salt.

Fluff the rice with a fork and discard the pandan and ginger. Serve a mound of rice with a spoonful of sambal beside it, the fried anchovies, peanuts, egg and cucumber arranged around.

💡 Traditionally it is wrapped in banana leaf and left to sit an hour, which lets the rice take on the leaf's scent. Baking paper will hold the parcel but gives you none of that perfume.