Nasi Gurih

There are all kinds of ways to make rice, such as this delicious nasi gurih. Flavored with santen (coconut cream), salam leaf (Asian bay leaf) and a bit of salt. This rice dish is super easy to make. I use my electric rice cooker!
I have made many rice dishes on this blog. Check them out here.
This recipe is enough for 4-6 people and is done in 40 minutes.
Nasi gurih (spicy rice) I (Java) #10 translated from Beb Vuyk’s Groot Indonesisch Kookboek.
Ingredients
- 1 liter of rice
- 1 1/2 liters of water
Herbs
- 1/4 block of santen
- 5 tablespoons of chopped onions
- 2 salam leaves (Asian bay leaf)
- 2 tablespoons of oil
- salt
- Wash the rice until the water runs clear.
- Bring the rice to a boil with salt and salam leaf.
- Let everything simmer for 8 minutes.
- Flake the block of santen on top.
- Transfer the rice to the steamer and steam until cooked through.
- Fry the onions in the oil until golden and crispy and sprinkle them over the rice.
They eat dry sambelans (including serundeng, sambal kelapa), sambal goreng beans, cabbage, kidney beans, fried pieces of chicken, satay of your choice.

I use pandan rice because I just love the flavor, but also because the pandan flavor goes very well with santen (coconut).
Salam is Asian bay leaf and very tasty. It’s often used in Indonesian dishes, especially in vegetable recipes. It has a warm, almost cinnamon-like flavor. I buy it in my Asian food shop. You can get it dried or fresh from the freezer.
Santen is a hard piece of coconut cream. I can get it at my local supermarket. Because I use half a liter (Beb talks in liters when it comes to rice quantities) of rice, I also halve the amount of santen.
I wash the rice well; until the water is almost transparent. This creates a nice loose grain. The santen again ensures that the rice becomes sticky. So if you start with too sticky rice, the whole thing becomes like porridge.
Then I add enough water (a finger above the rice) and chip the santen on top. I use 1/2 teaspoon of salt for my amount of rice.

Now everything can go in the rice cooker on normal rice setting. In the meantime, I sauté my onions in the pan. I use red onions, because it looks great on white rice. And that was that! How easy and oh so delicious. We eat our nasi gurih with sambal goreng buncis beans and an egg recipe. Selamat makan!
Please also try nasi goreng, nasi kuning and nasi kebuli.
