Sometimes, less is more! For instance, when you cook something, you may want to add this and that but at times, if the ingredients are not compatible or the combination is not in the appropriate proportions, the end result may be quite disastrous. Thankfully, though I am, at times, guilty as charged, so far what I have dished out turned out quite well…or most of the time, at least. But come to think of it, it is really not very necessary. Even with a little bit less, you can get something just as good or perhaps, even better.
Well, I was browsing through my fried rice posts the other day and I noticed that I had always added something extra – things such as bubuk (dried tiny shrimps), udang kering (dried prawns) and belacan (dried prawn paste) or cincaluk (fermented shrimps) and at times, even non-halal stuff like Chinese sausages or char siew (barbecued pork) or SPAM…and it dawned on me that I have never had a post on kampung fried rice in its simplest, most basic form…
It is very easy to cook kampung fried rice. Kampung is the Malay word for village and this is how the people in the villages cook their fried rice. It is simple and yet very delicious.
To cook this, you will need some leftover rice that has been kept overnight. It is best to use this instead of what you have freshly cooked. Loosen the grains so that your fried rice will not be lumpy…
You will also need a shallot or two, two or three cloves of garlic, a chili and some spring onion, if any…
Besides, you will need some ikan bilis (dried anchovies), fish gravy and an egg as well.
Peel the shallot and garlic and slice thinly. Clean the chili and remove the seeds and do the same to it, and chop the spring onion…
Heat up a bit of oil in the wok and put in the sliced shallot and garlic and the ikan bilis. Fry them till they turn golden brown…
Next, you add the sliced chili and chopped spring onion as well as the rice. Stir them well to mix everything together…
Then you add some fish gravy to it and a bit of monosodium glutamate. Instead of the fish gravy, you may use soy sauce or salt instead. After that, break an egg into the wok…
Break the yolk and mix the egg with the rice. Fry until the egg is completely cooked. Your kampung fried rice is ready. Scoop out the rice from the wok and serve it in a plate…
Now you may begin to enjoy the fruit of your labour. Bon appétit!
My parting shot – it is nice, as nice as all the rest that I’ve cooked before or perhaps even nicer…and definitely better than those at many places in town, take my word for it. Wink! Wink! LOL!!!
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 
ikan bilis is the best ingredient to cook for noob like me. i use them for soup stock, fry veggie, or even on their own is good enough (deep fried)!
Ya…but not too much. Salty and high protein content – uric acid…gout! 😦
oooo.. that looks sooo good to me. i love ikan billis. i am going to have that for lunch.
Lunch? Oh? You must be based overseas then… Here, we’ve yet to have breakfast… 🙂
Just what I love…..mmm. Arthur, love your simple cooking. Are you going to try your hands at baking anytime soon? 😀
Shudders! Have to follow recipe…, measure everything chun-chun…., if I listen to my missus, this cannot, that cannot…I panic liao!!!I’d stick to just baking pies… 😦
this is still my favourite kind of fried rice…..simple, yet tasty. Another version using hay-bee is also very nice.
Ya, I think I had that in an earlier post… Like eating rice with sambal hay bee. Yum! Yum!
Arthur, there goes my low carb diet! Rice is my weakness and nasi goreng kampung is simply irresitible. I would have this with lots of sambal belacan 🙂
Oh dear!!! Very indulgent, you! Muahahahahaha!!!! 😀
yeah, i love fried rice and it can be very simple to be tasty.. perhaps just with garlic and egg it would be very very yummy already!! and of course i don’t reject those that comes with a lot of ingredients, hahahaha.. the bottomline is, i love it!! 😀
My mum used sliced shallots…and egg. We grew up eating that for breakfast before going to school if there was any leftover rice.
At times…garlic and egg will just do the trick especially when I am in the hurry.
My mum just used sliced shallots & egg…and salt & msg, even simpler than my version.
Kampung fried rice looks tasty too with just the egg and the aromatics. =) My Mom used to cook fried rice with about the same ingredients except for the addition of frozen NZ peas and char siew, but I had never liked the taste of it. But isn’t dried prawns fragrant?
I think I’m just as guilty; I’ve thrown way too many ingredients together in one pot just to make a single meal far too many times and in the end, I ended up throwing most of it away.
Frozen peas!!! The ones we get here as hard as rocks!!! No matter how long you cook or boil, still so hard.
Dried prawns? It depends on the quality of what you buy – our local ones are very nice (Very expensive! RM65-70 a kilo!!!) – I think I had a fried rice post on this before. Others may not be so fragrant and some may even have an unpleasant smell.
Ya…exactly what I asked my wife – why she always makes it so hard for herself – looking for this sauce, that sauce, add a bit of this, add a bit of that…going to the garden to pluck this, pluck that – ok lah! Her fried rice may be a bit nicer usually but this is just as good…with a lot less work.
Lately so many ppl cooking fried rice? @_@
Haha…anyway…your kampung fried rice looks yummy! =)
Who? Where? Haven’t seen any in the other blogs. Everyone’s busy with the Ramadhan buffets… Too bad I have not been invited to any. 😦
i thought nasi goreng kampung, you will need to pound the ikan bilis ? Anyway, there are thousands way to cook up a dish. Yours look nice.
Ya…I’ve had that before – they pound the ikan bilis with the cili and they even add belacan… Nice, but this is also nice…and the best thing is – no extra work! That, I like!
I like your fried rice….
your fried rice got those “wok hei” or not? kakakaka…
You want, I leave there and let it get burnt for you lah! Very easy to do that! LOL!!! 😀
Simple and yet delicious. Yup, agree with you, even with a little bit less, we can get something just as good and nice. I find that fried rice with bubuk is no better in taste than with ikan bilis Ikan bilis would be a better choice.
Sometimes if the bubuk not so good, the heavy smell may not be so nice. Same with udang kering, will depend on the quality you buy. Always safest with ikan bilis!
OOhh I made nasi goreng kampung the other day too! But I was using a ready made paste 😛 And added ikan bilis and egg. But I didn’t have leftover rice so I used freshly boiled rice and they turned out to be too lumpy and wet 😦 I guess the lesson is that I should use leftover rice next time!
Best with leftover rice that has been kept overnight…or at least the rice must be cold, not freshly cooked. Ready-made paste? Maybe that’s too wet and it will make the rice turn soggy. Like when using oyster sauce too – I would just use a bit (you can hear the sizzling when you add it) and fry longer to get it to dry up or the rice would not be moist and not so nice.
Did you try without the monosodium glutamate before? My wife is against this. Awwww….
Just a bit wouldn’t kill you lah… Otherwise, you can always leave that out. I think in the past, the Malays used sugar instead but these days, they all use msg. So you and your mrs never eat out lah? Those noodle and whatever stalls, the Chinese restaurants and chu-char places… You wouldn’t believe how much msg they use. I would add a pinch – and imagine my horror when I saw the cook at one place using the senduk to scoop the msg to add to the dish! Shocking!!! And there is msg in oyster sauce, those chicken and ikan bilis stock cubes and granules and of course, instant noodle seasoning. So you do not eat all those lah? A lot of hidden dangers in food, I tell you…just be careful, eat moderately. No need to go overboard and be so fanatical. In the end, you wouldn’t dare to eat anything at all.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against this, but sometimes I have to abide when I have 2 health freak in my house. What you said is correct, nowadays everywhere we eat has MSG. My mum and wife is correct in their way too. They told me that since I always eat outside and consume a lot of this MSG, then we should not be doing so at home. But we still love food, nothing can beat the joy of eating and having a full tummy. Moderation is the key 🙂
Oh no!!! If I think something is bad, I will not touch it at home or outside. No double standard one… Actually, because I use just a little msg at home, when I eat out, often I would feel uncomfortable in the mouth and very thirsty (some people get cramps on their faces). They use too much…and when I remind them to cut down on their msg and they still use a lot, I would not eat at those places anymore. Funny thing is that so many people would eat at those same places and they do not seem to have any problem at all. Immune to it already, I guess…
I prefer my ikan bilis to be cripsy. So, I’d usually fry the ikan bilis first and take them out when they are golden brown. Would add them at final step on top of the fried rice.
This is ok as no water is added so after the cooking, the ikan bilis will still be crispy – no problem at all.
Luv this…like your posts on simple cooking. Looking forward to see more…
Wait ah!!! Wait till I’m in the mood to cook something again… LOL!!! 😀
Simple and yet delicious!! Next time try this again w/o egg, then use the egg wrap over the fried rice, then become nasi pattaya. 🙂
Without egg, not so nice – the taste is a bit different. I’ve cooked that way before – either no eggs or had too many already so did not want to add. Supposed to mix the rice with the egg while egg still uncooked so each grain would be coated with egg…but I don’t bother doing it like that. No problem…can fry omelette separately and wrap – then become nasi goreng pattaya. LOL!!! 😀
Side track a bit, MAS got cheap air fare on Sept..this morning i checked..return ticket – SBU-KUL-SBU only RM350+ all in!
September? Ya…RM91 one way excluding airport tax. Early August and late August, they have RM81 – I booked at this price for my trip. AA, all over RM100 minus the extras.
Cikgu, sorry lambat masuk class.
wait…scroll up see topic…..
ooo no wonder la my fried rice not nice….i tarak taruk shallot
Ya, I used to use shallots only…like my mum and then I saw on tv and also people in the shops using garlic only (Kylie Kwong adds sugar To “caramelise” even!), so I followed…and then I found that my missus’ fried rice was nicer than mine and I saw her using both…so I followed. After one try, all the time, must have both already… Brings the taste to a whole new level.
arthur. if you open kopitiam. i come support you kao kao. be sure to include SPAM fried rice too. 🙂
If only I had known I could cook when I was young, I would have gone into it…instead of becoming a teacher. Would have been a billionaire by now, not a poor miserable pensioner. Sobsssssss!!!!!
never too late! let me tell you a true story. there is is guy, who retired from govt sector. he is a chemist. he thought of opening his own laboratory. and he did. after retirement. now it is such a success, at almost 80 he is still running the show and the company is ever expanding. this is true story in Kuching. does it inspire you now? 🙂
Not really. I’m basically a very lazy person, remember? Muahahahaha!!!!! Just want to relax and enjoy my golden years.
I guess this is the mentality of ppl who cook at home.
They think that since they cook at home, they should put more ingredients LOL
Same goes to my grandma… sometimes the ingredients in her fried bihun is more than the bihun but I actually like to eat just the fried bihun itself 😦
Hah!!! Don’t I know it too well? Even at one place here where I always buy fried noodles from – RM5.00 and I would get miserable bits of meat and veg but the taste is awesome. Once I told the man to add more ingredients, maybe fish balls, shrimps, sotong…and I will pay extra and he did. That time, the noodles did not taste great at all…and now, whenever I buy, I would not make any such request – stick to the original recipe, better.
Simple and yet so nice to eat!! I used to do these when my kids were still in the house.. minus the cabai, of course… at times I put dried prawns instead of ikan bilis when they ran out of stock… it would be great if there is chinese sausage too! 🙂
Chinese sausage? I used that before…but not together with ikan bilis. Ini macam 1Malaysia punya fried rice pulak! LOL!!!! I had posts on both dried prawna…and fried rice with Chinese sausage before. The chili here for colour only lah – not spicy these days. If I want spicy, I would have to use cili padi… 😦
wuah……how come your fried rice looks so delicious compare to mine? do u use more oil?
Oh no… Not nice if too much oil, so oily. Just enough to brown the shallots and garlic and ikan bilis – around one tablespoon like that.
I like the little decoration you put on top. Although it’s just some red chilli but it does spice up the look of the dish.
Always nice to add this and that to a dish even if it’s only for the colour. Makes it look more appetising… 😉
I agree with eiling. Garnishing with colors enhance the visual appeal to the dish.
Yes, but the taste is the most important. Some places serve such beautiful dishes…but the food isn’t as nice. We have at least one here – very popular but I’ve been there twice only, I think and I did not find anything that great that would make me want to go again.
Your ikan bilis is so big…normally i use mini ikan bilis which I bought from Medan.
Your nasi goreng looks yummy.
Big kah? I thought they were pretty normal…