This popular Singapore dish remains one of the cheapest meals offered in local food courts and hawker centres. Even Ikea Singapore is serving Nasi Lemak for breakfast and lunch! While many stalls sell the dish as a set meal, with the basic accompaniments, others offer a wide variety of side dishes that can be added on.
While the rice is traditionally cooked with coconut milk, variants include the addition of garlic, shallots, a small cut of ginger and at least two stalks of lemon grass added into the cooking rice. The spices enhance the sweetness and fragrant flavours of the rice.
Since the 1980s, the dish has gradually evolved to include a greater variety of accompaniments besides the standard anchovies, chilli sauce and cucumber. The range of side dishes is as varied as the imagination of the stallholder. For example, rendang (a local curry), fried chicken wing and otah (barbequed fish paste) seem to be the accompaniments of choice. Others have achar (pickled vegetables) and long beans.
While nasi lemak is essentially a Malay dish, the Chinese also serve it, sometimes accompanied by non-halal side dishes such as luncheon meat. Some well-known nasi lemak stalls, such as Chong Pang Nasi Lemak, are Chinese. A Chinese stall, once located at the Market Street Food Centre, innovatively churned out plates of green nasi lemak that became a popular meal, especially since it came with good chilli. The tinge of light green came from the pandanus leaves.
