Nasi Goreng

What Goes With It

• A cold Bintang
• Satay skewers
• Acar, the Indonesian pickle

Making Nasi Goreng, Step by Step

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1. Break the cold rice apart with wet hands so there are no lumps at all before you start cooking.

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2. Blend the shallots, garlic, chillies, terasi and coriander to a smooth paste with a splash of water.

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3. Heat 3 tablespoons of the oil in a wok over medium heat and fry the paste for 6 to 8 minutes, stirring, until it darkens and the oil separates around the edges. This is the step that cannot be rushed.

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4. Raise the heat, add the chicken, and stir-fry 4 minutes until cooked through.

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5. Add the prawns and cook 90 seconds until just pink.

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6. Add the rice and toss hard for 3 minutes, breaking up any remaining clumps against the side of the wok.

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7. Pour the kecap manis and soy sauce around the edge of the wok, add the salt, and toss for 2 minutes until every grain is coated a deep brown and smells caramelised.

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8. Fold through the spring onions.

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9. Fry the eggs separately in the remaining oil until the whites are crisp and lacy at the edges and the yolks still run.

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10. Serve mounded on plates, each topped with an egg, with crackers, cucumber, tomato, fried shallots and sambal alongside.

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Related guide: Choosing rice.

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Worth Knowing Before You Cook

Day-old rice, always. Fresh rice gives a soft, clumpy nasi goreng that will not brown.

Kecap manis is thick and sweet and there is no real substitute; dark soy with palm sugar is the nearest approximation.

Toast the terasi wrapped in foil in a dry pan for a minute first — it smells alarming and tastes essential.

Swaps and Variations

• Out of spring onions? A small regular onion, finely sliced, or a few chives stirred in at the end both cover the job.
• Dried chilli flakes can stand in for the red chillies. Heat varies a great deal between chillies and between jars, so start with a small pinch and add more to taste.
• An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.

Keeping What's Left

Refrigerate up to 3 days. Reheat in a hot wok with a splash of oil; add a fresh egg each time.

What's in a Serving

Per serving, an approximate calculation from the ingredient list. Treat it as a rough guide: a cooked weight is worked out with raw figures, so those lines run high; an ingredient listed without an amount is not counted, so the figures run low; part of the energy comes from foods, or weights per item, with no recorded source. How the figures are worked out.