Nyonya_Fried_Rice

RECIPE NAME: Nyonya Fried Rice

INTERVIEWEE’S NAME: Ms.May

Introduction

The chef who cooks Nyonya Fried Rice is Aunty May. She is originally a Malaysian although she is talented in Western food. Aunty May came from Johor Pontian and she move to Kuala Lumpur is because she wants to investigate more foods recipe. This restaurant was her third restaurant since she moves from Pontian to Kuala Lumpur. Before she works at Chic-Licious, she in a Western restaurant therefore she is a chef with highly skilled professional cook who is proficient in Malay and Western of food preparation. She is major in Western food; however she is interested in one of the Malays food, which is Nyonya fried rice. She madly love this fried rice so she investigate for a long time and she has created a special paste to cook Nyonya fried rice where become one of the popular dish at Chic-Licous restaurant. Her hometown majority citizens are from Nyonya therefore she know the original taste of Nyonya cuisines, it helps her created a special paste which have the Nyonya taste and suitable for Kuala Lumpur citizens.

Food ingredients and techniques

There are many recipe and ways to prepare a plate of Nyonya fried rice. So Now I’m going to display the recipe that I get from a restaurant that named Chic-Licious and the techniques to cook a plate of delicious Nyonya fried rice. As we know that Nyonya fried rice is one of the common and popular cuisine that can easily find in Malaysia, however some of the restaurant named it as Pattaya rice but actually both are nearly the same.

The ingredients from the restaurant:

• A bowl of cooked rice
• 1 chopped clove garlic
• 2 sliced shallots
• An egg
• A sausage
• 3 dry shrimp
• A handful of green peas and carrots cube
• Special Sambal that made by the chef of Chic-Licious

(Above ingredients only available to cook a plate of Nyonya fried rice served with one person)

The ingredients of Special Sambal:

• 8 small chopped red onions
• 8 fresh chillies, remove seeds and slice
• 5 cloves sliced garlic
• 1 stalk lemon grass thinly sliced
• ½ ounce tamarind
• ½ ounce or 10 dried chillies
• 2 table spoon of turmeric powder
• 3 table spoon of sugar
• 1 table spoon of salt
• 1 Special spice (untold by the chef)

The procedures to make Special Sambal by the Chef

1. Blend the first six ingredients into a paste. If they do not blend easily, add about 3 table spoon of oil to the mixture or it can be use Mortar and pestle to blend the ingredients.
2. Heat 5 table spoon oil in a pan. When the oil is moderately hot, sauté the paste until it is fragrant. This should take about 15 minutes. Use only low heat and stir the paste constantly so that it does not stick to the pan.
3.  Add the sugar and special specie.
4. Let the paste cook while stirring occasionally. It is ready when oil from the paste floats to the top. 

The techniques and procedure to cook Nyonya fried rice by Chic-Licious:

First for the fried rice, heat a little oil in pan and garlic until lightly brown and fragrant. Add dry shrimp and stir dry until cooked.

Add the green peas, carrots cube, sauté sliced shallots and cooked rice and mix well. Season with the special sambal is according to the taste. Continue to stir until the rice completely mixed and heated through. Once the fried rice is done put it on a plate.

After that for the omelette, first lightly beat the egg into a bowl. Heat the pan with little of oil and then pour in egg and swirl the pan by the handle to make a thin omelette. When the egg is 90% done which means the omelette is brown at the bottom then can switch off the fire or remove from heat. 

Once the omelette is done, place the fried rice in the center of the omelette and spread it accordingly. Fold the edges into an envelope shape, making sure to overlap the parcel a bit. Carefully flip the omelette onto a serving plate.

Next, after the rice and egg are done. Heat the pan with little of oil and pan- fried the sausage.

Lastly, drizzle chili sauce or soy sauce over the top (depending on your taste) and a plate of Nyonya fried rice is done.

The differences between online recipe and Chic-Licious’s recipe

Based on the ingredients, we can know that the recipe from Internet; the portion is bigger than Chic-Licious since it has more ingredients such as chicken breast and carrots. Not only this, compared to the recipe that we found from Internet, we can know that they use 2 cups of cooked rice and 3 sliced of shallots to cook together and opposite the Chic-Licious’ is using a bowl of cooked rice and 2 sliced of shallots to cook it. For the recipe from Internet, it might be relatively large amount and tasty after finish cooking compare to the Chic-Licious’s recipe because the recipe from the Internet is using 2 cups of cook rice and 3 shallots sliced to cook it.Besides that, the pastes that restaurant uses to cook the Nyonya Fried Rice is different with the recipe that we found from Internet. Chic-Licious used the special chili paste that prepare by the cheft to fry the rice whereas he Internet recipe is just major in the soy sauce and ketchup to fry the rice. That’s why this causes the taste of fried rice are slightly different between both of the recipe.

Furthermore, the chef of Chic-Licious had mentioned the rice that she uses to cook Nyonya Fried Rice is very important because it cannot too soft or too hard otherwise it will affects the taste of it. Both of the recipes for cooking the fried rice are slightly same which both of them also used a handful of peas and carrots as one of the ingredient to cook it. Besides that, Chic-Licious used an egg to cook for the omelette, while the recipe from the Internet; they used 2 eggs to cook for the omelette. Last but not least, after finish cooked the Nyonya Fried Rice, you can put any garnishes beside you fried rice. As the recipe from Internet, they did not put any garnish besides but Chic-Licious did it. They fried a sausage, some shrimps and put some vegetables on the plate, so the Nyonya Fried Rice will look more delicious.

Based on the recipe we found from Internet, it mostly focused on the heavy taste of the food, so their recipe is slightly different compared to Chic-Licious’s recipe as we had mentioned above. Yet, Chic-Licious is operate in education place; the chef focused on the health of the people which in the school because she think that students/staff should not eat so much heavy taste food. Therefore, she did not used so much monosodium glutamate or some ingredients which can made the food taste become heavy and unhealthy to cook for Nyonya Fried Rice. 


Adaptability of our comments to an international

Sambal ~ Chili Paste
Sambal is a spicy, chili based sauce or relish that is popular in many countries across Southeast Asia, especially Malaysia. The sauce consists of ground or pureed chilies and may include small amounts of other ingredients such as, shallots, salt, sugar, or other spices.

Mortar and pestle
The mortar is a bowl, typically made of hard wood, ceramic or stone. The pestle is a heavy club-shaped object, the end of which is used for crushing and grinding. The substance to be ground is placed in the mortar and ground, crushed or mixed with the pestle. Mortars and pestles have been used in cooking up to the present day.

Nyonya
Nyonya is used for women and these were terms first used by Malays to differentiate these locally born Chinese from later immigrants.