Nasi Minyak

Nasi minyak.

Say those two words to any single Malay/Indian-Muslim and you're likely to get a cringe and semi-nervous laugh if you're lucky... and a slap across the face if you're not.

Now, what exactly is it about nasi minyak (or ghee rice) that can raise such ire? How can such a delicately spiced, luxuriantly buttery dish ignite such negative feelings?


Time for a bit of a back story here.

In Singapore, nasi minyak (probably by virtue of its generous use of comparatively expensive ghee) is often associated with special occasions, particularly weddings. Hence, it became a popular turn of phrase where to ask someone when they would be serving nasi minyak would be to tease them about when their upcoming nuptials would be.

Any single woman in Singapore will tell you that when you're getting married is the most important concern to most relatives. It is very often one of the first few (if not THE FIRST) question they'll ask you when you meet up at family gatherings. I distinctly remember being teased about it from the age of approximately 14 and I wasn't the only one. As each unmarried cousin came into the house, they too will get that same old question. Gathering after gathering, year after year.

Considering that Malay/Indian-Muslim families tend to be large, that's A LOT of nosey relatives asking you when you're getting married! So you can understand why some women might simply get put off by the mere mention of nasi minyak.

Speaking of which.

Now that I'm married, I no longer despise the mention of nasi minyak. In fact, my heart skips a beat, imagining the aroma of onions/shallots being cooked away in naughty, naughty, NAUGHTY ghee.

And trust me, you really want to cook those onions well. A good nasi minyak has a contrast in textures of fluffy rice and slighty chewy onions. More importantly, you DON'T want raw onions in your delicately spiced rice.

So take your time to lovingly cook those onions. Then enjoy the aroma of ghee and rosewater as you wait in anticipation to dig into your freshly cooked nasi minyak with a piping hot serve of curry and raita. Maybe some acar buah if there's any left in the fridge. Oh my.

Nasi Minyak (Ghee rice)

(a mash up of this recipe and my friend's recipe, a work in progress recipe)

2 rice cups of basmati rice (washed then soaked for an hour)
2 rice cups of water
1 rice cup of evaporated milk
1/2 cup of mixed ghee + oil

1 onion, sliced thinly
1 shallot, sliced thinly
1 cinnamon stick
1 inch ginger
4 cloves garlic
10 cloves
1 whole star anise
8 cardamom pods, lightly crushed
2 pandan leaves
1 teaspoon rosewater

Raisins/sultanas & roasted cashews to garnish (optional)
salt to taste

Method:

1. Blend the ginger and the garlic into a paste. 
2. Drain the rice and keep it aside. 
3. In your rice cooker, saute the onions and shallots in your ghee + oil mixture until they are browned. Be patient and take your time - you definitely want your onions well cooked.
4. Add the drained rice and cinnamon stick. Stir the mixture until it is well-coated with oil + ghee. 
5. Add the rosewater, water, spices, pandan leaves and evaporated milk to the rice cooker. Season with salt.
6. Add raisins (option)
7. Leave rice to cook in your rice cooker. 

Extra notes:

• Please note that this is a work in progress recipe - I might tweak it next time so that I only use shallots. 
• Notice I use an unofficial measure - "rice cup". In Singapore, you always have a plastic cup specifically for cooking rice in your rice cooker... which I suspect came with one's rice cooker. It's not necessarily the same as a metric cup because they tend to be smaller in size. I cross referenced mine with metric cups and found that 1 rice cup of liquid was equivalent to about 3/4 metric cup. In any case, as long as you use the same proportion of rice to liquid, you should be fine. You just might need to add more/less of the other ingredients if you find that these are lacking in your first batch. 
• I put 1/2 cup mixed ghee and oil so that you can choose how much ghee you want to use. If you're more health conscious, you may want to use less ghee. If you want to be decadent, use more ghee. I had a tin of ghee to finish up so in this batch, I ended using about a 4:1 ratio of ghee to oil.
• If you don't have a rice cooker with a saute function, stir fry your base in a pan then transfer it to the rice cooker with all the ingredients in step 5. 
• Ummi's original recipe suggested adding vinegar to the basmati rice during the soaking stage so that the rice grains don't break. I didn't try this because as far as I knew, you only needed to soak the rice in water to ensure the grains would stay nice and long. The rice is considered more appetising when the rice grains are intact. 
• My friend uses a chicken stock cube in her recipe - I might try that next time :)
• Usually, people garnish the rice with raisins/sultanas and cashew nuts. I decided to add my raisins into the rice mixture while it cooked so that it would plump up with flavours from the stock. Personally, I prefer the look of plump sultanas to wrinkly raisins any day!