Dazed and confused…

Have you ever tried googling for a recipe only to find different people telling you different ways to cook the same thing? That was exactly what happened when I went in search of the way to cook nasi lemak kukus (steamed coconut rice). There was one that had three or four 10-minute steps and then I came across another where the rice was steamed first before the santan (coconut milk) was added. Of course, the less-complex latter sounded a lot more attractive to me since it would be a lot simpler so I thought I could give it a try.

I had some santan (coconut milk) left in the fridge left over from when I cooked the Sarawak laksa a while ago. It said on the pack that it should not be kept in the freezer and could be stored in the fridge but one would have to use whatever was left within three days. Gosh!!! That was almost two weeks ago but since it seemed all right still, I decided that I would just go ahead and use it and be done with it. Waste not, want not!

I got the ingredients ready – a few thin slices of ginger, one shallot, peeled and sliced, two stalks of serai (lemon grass), bruised…and a pandan (screw pine) leaf cut into short 2 or 3-inch lengths…

…and a bit of salt and mixed them with some leftover rice that I had in the fridge that morning…

Then, I poured in the santan but ooooopsss!!!! There was too much of it for that little bit of rice…

…but what the heck!!! I decided to just go ahead with it and steamed it for some half an hour or so.

I also had two half-eaten tubs of sambal ikan bilis in the fridge from God-knows-when. We can buy that here, very nice ones, in those little plastic tubs that they use for homemade kaya (coconut jam), for only RM5.00 each. I remember I bought two as I thought my girl would want to take one back to her school to eat with rice or whatever sometimes but somehow or other, she never did. I did eat half of what was in one tub and I had no idea who had a bit of what was in the other one. Well, they probably were shoved into some obscure corner in the fridge and were conveniently forgotten until that day, when I decided to do a little bit of cleaning and found them. It seemed all right still so I heated all of it and served it with the nasi lemak kukus…

I also cooked one egg, hard-boiled for the purpose and since there was no cucumber in the house, tomatoes would just have to do…

Hey!!! It sure didn’t taste too bad, really! Hmmm…since that was the case, I probably would want to try cooking this again – starting from scratch this time and with all fresh ingredients, no more leftovers.