Nasi Lemak 4.0. Where did we go wrong?

Assalamualaikum. and a very good day to all of you readers out there. I’m back again with another fresh posting on my blog. And as you can see after we have successfully accomplished the mission of STEMAZINGRUN 2018, we are still in the middle of completing another video project at hand.  Though I don’t want to share what kind of video apps we develop at the moment, but all you have to know is that what we’re doing here at the Creative Multimedia Learning Technology Unit was everything here related to teaching & learning stuff. Kind of bored isn’t it? I mean, the thing you do DAY IN and DAY OUT was the same ol’ material from classroom recording, one person talk in front of many audience and you hit the record button on the video camera, you shoot green screen stuff with a talent mostly academic staff saying this and that bla bla bla…and then you bring back the material, edit, cut here and there, render and then publish! That’s it! You’re DONE! Thanks to my boss for letting us blogging on the same root of our website which is UTMLead, with the vision & misson “To be globally recognized as a Center for Academic Leadership” and “Nurturing Excelence and Innovation in Academic Leadership and Teaching and Learning“. Please don’t ask me details on what should one do in order to become a great academic leaders in the future. But what I could show you guys is my final artwork and how to get it done. That’s it. But if you flip the questions like, “hey what did you do in UTMLead with all your video production skills? You should put your effort somewhere else benefit the skills you have.” You still want the answer? Just click on our website and I will give you plenty. What I did learnt was, do your job and get the JOB DONE! You’re not in the film making industry! And that’s reality. Whenever I felt that kind of situation where I think I should pour out my skills and creativity somewhere else out there, it reminded me of a sobering fact that I actually work in a Public University not a Post Production facility like Pinewood Post at Nusajaya. So what do I do? Keep your eyes open for opportunity to do something bigger than you! But how? Just like I said, keep your EYES OPEN WIDE to see what opportunities ahead out there that benefited your skills & creativity. You got me? I hope you do. Hey…I’m off track with my posting, You know I should share something with you guys a pretty common interesting stuff out there that might actually raise the issue on one particular thing. And that is..NASI LEMAK! Pretty common ain’t it? Yup! But here’s the difference according to my definition.

Nasi Lemak at it’s BEST
Source from http://www.friedchillies.com/images/uploads/reviews/NL_Angah.jpg

I don’t know about you guys. But when I eat something, let say, asam pedas. The taste MUST be originally asam pedas as the name suggested. But what about when you eat it at a restaurant/food stall/cafe that promises the true original taste of Malay asam pedas and you struggling long enough to have that taste but sadly it does not exist in your mouth? I mean the colour yes looks scarily red and orange in the eyes but it doesn’t taste as good as it sounds. This exactly kills my appetite!! Ughh!! Do you get what I mean now? I really hope that you get the picture.

Now when we talk abut local breakfast in Malaysia, we have a variety of dishes to satisfy our stomach with. Be it roti canai (paratha bread), nasi lemak, roti jala, soto nasi, lontong basah dan kering, lempeng kelapa, mee kari, mee rebus, you name it. We have many kinds of tasty local breakfast to choose from. And the most common local breakfast you could find anywhere on a hawker food cenre or roadside stall is Nasi Lemak. So what is nasi lemak anyway? Nasi lemak is a Malay fragrant rice dish cooked in coconut milk, pandan leaf and ginger. It is commonly found in Malaysia, where it is considered the national dish. Traditionally, nasi lemak is served with a hot spicy sauce (sambal), and usually includes various garnishes, including fresh cucumber slices, small fried anchovies (ikan bilis), roasted peanuts, and hard-boiled or fried egg. As a more substantial meal, nasi lemak may also be served with an additional protein dish such as ayam goreng (fried chicken), sambal sotong (cuttlefish in chili), small fried fish, cockles, and on special occasions rendang daging (beef) stewed in coconut milk and spices). And as you can see on the image above, was a plain nasi lemak wrapped in banana leaves. But these days, not many of them hawkers wrapped their nasi lemak in banana leaves. They just use newspaper or brown paper. Although this has been a modern and flexible way of wrapping a unique dish such as nasi lemak, I found it insulting on certain degree. Here’s why:

1. It is because nasi lemak has been considered a national dish in Malaysia and the recipe has been passed down from our great ancestors very long time ago – Wouldn’t it be great if we just followed their way of serving this unique dish the same way they served it long time ago? The best thing when nasi lemak wrapped in banana leaves is that the fragrant will stays a lot longer than their counterpart. This has been proven true when you first open up a nasi lemak wrapped in banana leaves, the aroma stays together inside the leaves.
2. I found that many hawkers/restaurant who sell nasi lemak does not meet up and uplift the original taste of nasi lemak in so many ways – why? Because of how they mixed the ingredients that makes it so important to ensure the aroma coming out from the rice is fully rich in taste. This is true! Especially when you are a stingy person who cares nothing but profit in return. This is what happen when you lessen the main ingredient in making nasi lemak. Just so you know that coconut milk, pandan leaf, salt and ginger plays a central role in moulding the perfect aroma of nasi lemak. Go ahead, lessen the ingredients, someday your customers will find other hawkers who makes better nasi lemak than yours!
3. The sambal is the heart of nasi lemak – Just like pasta with it’s pasta sauce in a 5 star restaurant, would you rather eat the pasta with prego or would you like to eat it from the Chef’s own hand? So, what I was trying to tell you that alhough there are many hawkers who sells nasi lemak at the moment, not one of them coooked the sambal the way it’s suppose to be cooked. I give you another example. Why do I like my mom’s cooking better than a restaurant? It’s because she’s the BEST cook ever in our house! It doesn’t matter if the menus was as simple as nasi goreng kampung, mee goreng, bihun goreng, soto nasi, asam pedas, ayam masak lemak, lempeng kelapa, etc. All of them were surprisingly delicious that we siblings always craving for more! So if you are a local hawker food stall, please make sure the sambal cooked long enough with the right ingredients so that it will mixed perfectly in the frying pan. The ingredients? OMG, I thought you guys know about it already! Yeesh!! Please don’t make me wrote more on sambal. The thing is, you cannot cut corners on your recipe! If our ancestors told the sambal recipe inclusive of dried chilies, onions, garlic, asam jawa, sugar, salt, gula melaka must be on the exact measure, follow each of them with great care and love. By doing this not only you served your customer the great sambal there is, but at the same time you are promoting the true taste of sambal tumis to all the people out there. The key to a great recipe is always the LOVE within.
4. Sometimes fried anchovies and roasted peanuts are not there! – this is true if you bought a wrapped nasi lemak. Some of the important ingredients that makes nasi lemak a nasi lemak weren’t there. This is another way of how they cut corners in making nasi lemak. And the price were reasonably within the budget of average Malaysian. I cannot bare to see such fine dishes as nasi lemak losing it’s virginity because of lacking in preparation by the hawkers. This is a full of shame by definition. If you a half-assed Malaysian, yes you do this to all of your customers. But if you really care for other Malaysians just like you please don’t forget to put back in fried anchovies and roasted peanuts in nasi lemak. In my years of experience eating breakfast at a local food stall, it’s very difficult to see a basic set of nasi lemak with a decent fried anchovies. Some of them were soft and stiff, others were fried without taking out the head and cutting out into two. It’s such a shame to see this national dishes being sell by the wrong food hawkers out there. Maybe they were new in this food stuff preparation. But please don’t make it worse to the tourist came into our country. My advise is, please buy a good quality of anchovies at the market. And cut it into two, clear out the remaining of the anchovies. Sure they maybe pricey about RM35-RM40 /kg but that was the price of a true nasi lemak ingredients in the making. The day you cut corners of them ingredients is the day you cut down your profit very fast!

Jeffri Rahman
Producer | Editor | Blogger
http://cubitsanasini.blogspot.my