Nasi Kebuli

Nasi kebuli

A nasi kebuli is a fragrant white rice cooked with a herb mix of warm flavours like cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves.

The wiki page about nasi kebuli states that the rice is cooked in a goat broth. Read more about the history of nasi kebuli on wiki here.

Beb refers for this nasi kebuli to the recipe for ‘Rice Cooking’. Rice can be steamed by first boiling it in little water and then steaming until cooked (in the colander part of a rice steamer). Or you do as I do and you just use an electric rice steamer.

Electric rice steamer

I love my electric steamer because it gives space on my kitchen counter. I keep it in my pantry. When the rice is done it stays warm and I can scoop fresh, perfect cooked rice anytime I like.

I use my rice steamer also for nasi kuning (yellow rice) or Japanese rice, kayaku gohan: rice that is seasoned with soy sauce, mushrooms and meat.

My rice steamer is also very suitable for this nasi kebuli recipe. Practical and fast!

Nasi Kebuli #9 translated from Beb Vuyk’s Groot Indonesisch Kookboek, page

Ingredients

• 1 liter of rice
• 1 1/2 liters of water
• salt
• 150 grams of finely chopped onions
• 3 finely chopped pieces of garlic
• 1/4 stick of cinnamon
• 3 cloves
• 1 pinch of nutmeg
• 8 tablespoons of oil or butter

1. Rub onions, garlic and herbs together and fry them until yellow in the oil or butter.
2. Bring this to the boil with the water and the salt and give it some time to add flavour to the broth
3. Then add the washed rice and cook gently for 8 minutes.
4. Steam as specified in recipe I.

Nasi kebuli comes from Arabia. People eat it with gulai, rempah, satay kambing and atjar ketimun and roasted chicken.

I use Jasmine rice, because I like this kind of rice. I cut my onions pretty coarsely (into half moons). I use a third of Beb’s ingredients because I only need rice for 3 people today.

The amount is small enough for my cobek (mortar). I make sure that the clove is grounded fine in the spice mixture (bumbu).

Beb writes about a piece of cinnamon in her recipe. It is more convenient to use cinnamon powder. I keep my stick like it is, and I’ll add it later to the rice.

I fry the bumbu in the butter. When the onions are tender I scoop the bumbu through my rice into the pan of the electric cooker.

The cinnamon stick can be added together with water, which is a finger piece above the rice. That always works.

I steam this on the same setting for regular white rice. The end result is a tender rice with a specific smell. You can smell that one clove along with the nutmeg and the cinnamon stick. It smells a bit like Christmas. Yet this rice fits very well with light summery food.

Want to see more rice recipes in this blog? Follow this link here!