Shixcooks: Kangkong Sambal

Kangkong Sambal

Kangkong or water spinach is a very South-east Asian thing. Elsewhere it's apparently a weed haha. I've cooked this as a side dish to my nasi lemak. I've stir fried it with a sambal belacan type of paste. The sweet salty and spicy taste balances very well

Prep time: 15 min

Cook time: 20 min

Ingredients:

• 500g kangkong
• 4 cloves shallots
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp belacan or 1 tbsp dried shrimp
• 2 tbsp ground chilli
• 2 cubes ikan bilis
• 3 tbsp oyster sauce
• sugar and salt to taste
• oil for frying

Method:

• Ground the shallot, garlic, chilli, belacan. ikan bilis together but ensure it's still got a bit of texture. Don't want it to be too fine. 
• Cut up the kangkong till they're about 2 inches in length. Discard the last 4 inches from the root.
• In a wok, heat up the oil. Place the ground ingredients and fry till fragrant.
• Once that's all cooked, add the oyster sauce then kangkong. Add some water if it's too dry
• Add salt and sugar if necessary and youre done
• Eat it!

Shixcooks: Nasi Lemak (Savoury Rice)

So today my sister wanted Nasi Lemak (savoury rice) as her welcome back meal so I made these sides to go with this versatile meal.

Coconut rice (not pictured)

Prep time: 5mins
Cook time 30 mins
Special Equipment: rice cooker

Ingredients:

• 3 cups of rice
• 2.5 cups of water
• 3 tbsp coconut cream/milk
• Pinch of salt
• 1 inch ginger 
• 3 cloves garlic 
• 4 tbsp oil (some prefer margarine or butter)

Method: 

1. Wash the rice in a pot and once done add in the water.
2. Add in the oil, coconut cream and salt and mix well
3. Bruise the garlic and ginger and add into the pot. Bury them well so that they perfume the rice.
4. Let it cook.

Note: Being a rice eater, my rice is cooked in the rice cooker. If you don't have one, cook it in the pot at medium heat until water boils then cover and use extremely low heat under water dries up.
At this point, mix it and turn off the flame and leave the steam to do the work for the next 15 min

Rice Variation

Garlic and ginger are used here as aromatics. This is the way mu mum does it. There are other variations that people normally use which are written below:

1. Omit the ginger and garlic and use 3 pandan leaves instead. Wash them and tie into a knot before adding them in step 3. (Most common)

2. If you would like green rice, replace the ginger and garlic with 5 pieces of pandan leaf. Grind the Pandan leaf into a paste, sieve out the paste to remove the fibres and let the rice be coloured and fragrances by the juice collected.

3. Omit the garlic and use 2 sticks of lemongrass instead.

Side Dishes

I've cooked the rice with grilled fish and kangkong belacan. Usually, it's cooked with other proteins and vegetables like:

1. Fried yellowstriped scad/trevally

2. Omelette

3. sliced cucumber

4. fried peanuts

5. fried dried anchovies

6. Sweet sambal

7. Otak-otak (grilled spiced fish paste)

8. Fried chicken

9. Fishballs

10. Sausages

Do try out these recipes. It's really easy and cheap too!