.: evil jungle prince :.

I hope people from Malaysia won't laugh at me too much for attempting to make what some consider to be their national dish (and substituting baby zuchini for cucumber slices, which I didn't have on hand). I've never eaten this dish before and have little idea what the presentation is supposed to look like, but alas.. there must be a first time for everything.

When I began preparing dinner this evening, I actually only intended to make coconut rice (nasi lemak), which utilizes coconut milk, lemongrass, and pandanus leaf to lend a divine fragrance to the rice. (Yep, I cheated and stole a leaf from my baby pandanus plant.) Well, after these ingredients were placed into my rice cooker, you can't believe the amazing, intoxicating scent that issued forth. (Subsequently, the taste of the rice was magnificent and I'll certainly be making this often.)

As I searched around for nasi lemak recipes, I realized that this dish was normally part of a larger meal and decided to push ahead and try making a meal of it, despite the fact I was missing cucumber. I decided on a nasi lemak / sambal ikan bilis combination. (Ikan bilis is a sambal prepared with dried anchovies, onion, garlic, tamarind, shallots, dried chillies, belacan (fermented shrimp paste), salt, and sugar.) I also fried some peanuts in a little oil and with a dab of sambal oelek.

I was super-pleased with the result, although I am sure that this dish could be improved upon by leaps and bounds with the help/feedback of people who really know how to make it. I pretty much just followed the recipe at the link above, but I can't speak to its accuracy. Who knows? Malaysian/Indonesian fare is new territory for me.

My favorite part of this dish was definitely the coconut rice scented with lemongrass and pandanus leaf. Oh my god. The smell and taste were just heavenly. How can I have not tried this dish up until this point in my life?

After this meal, I thought now would be a good time to break open the package of Indonesian ginger coffee I purchased a while back and give it a try. I can definitely say that the taste of this coffee was... shocking! The ginger was potently strong, as were the other herbs used to flavor this unique brew. I think most Yanks would spit out the stuff, but after flavoring it with a little cream and giving myself time to adjust to it, I began to find the overpowering ginger taste pleasing. Almost soothing. I think I will give it a few more tries and see if I don't develop a taste for it.

This particular type of coffee was powdered but not "instant" -- the majority of the grounds were too large to dissolve completely and fell to the bottom of the cup quickly, much like Greek style coffee.