← Nouns Cooking · Malaysian & Singaporean

Ingredients

• 400 g Jasmine rice, rinsed until the water runs clear
• 20 dried butterfly pea flowers (bunga telang)
• 600 ml hot water
• 1 stick lemongrass stalk, bruised
• ½ tsp Salt
• 2 mackerel (ikan kembung), cleaned
• ½ tsp Ground turmeric
• ½ tsp salt, for the fish
• 2 tbsp Vegetable oil
• 80 g desiccated or grated coconut
• 1 handful daun kesum (Vietnamese mint) or mint, finely shredded
• 6 Makrut (kaffir) lime leaves, very finely shredded
• 1 Torch ginger flower (bunga kantan), very thinly sliced (optional)
• 2 sticks lemongrass stalks, white part only, very thinly sliced
• 1 handful Thai basil (selasih), shredded
• 4 Shallot, thinly sliced
• 1 Cucumber, cut into thin matchsticks
• 150 g Bean sprouts, tails picked
• 100 g long beans, very thinly sliced
• 4 salted eggs or hard-boiled eggs, halved
• 4 tbsp Sambal oelek
• 4 fish crackers (keropok) (optional)

Method

1. Steep the butterfly pea flowers in the hot water for 10 min until deep blue, then strain. Soak the rinsed rice in the blue water for 20 min.
2. Cook the rice in its blue water with the lemongrass and salt in a rice cooker, or covered on the lowest heat for 15 min, then rest off the heat for 10 min. Fluff it up.
3. Meanwhile, toast the coconut in a dry pan over medium-low heat for 8–10 min, stirring constantly, until evenly deep golden. Pound or grind it while warm into an oily, fragrant paste (kerisik).
4. Rub the fish with turmeric and salt and pan-fry in the oil over medium heat for 4–5 min per side, until crisp and the flesh flakes from the bone. Flake it, discarding the bones.
5. Toss the shredded herbs, sliced lemongrass, torch ginger, shallots, cucumber, bean sprouts and long beans together in a bowl. Mix half the kerisik and half the fish flakes through.
6. Serve a mound of blue rice with a big pile of the herb salad, the rest of the fish and kerisik, an egg, sambal and keropok. Mix it all up with your hand or a spoon before eating.

Tips

• The herbs are the soul of the dish, so shred them as finely as you can with a sharp knife. Any mix of mint, basil and lime leaves works if you cannot find daun kesum.
• In Kelantan it is often eaten with budu (fermented anchovy sauce) and ayam percik. Contains fish and egg; check your sambal for shrimp paste, and check the keropok label for wheat if you need it gluten-free.

Sources

Written in our own words after cross-checking these recipes:

The Meatmen El Mundo Eats