Amazing Foods from Malaysia

Typical home-style Malay dishes include fish or seafood, chicken, beef or vegetables simmered in a coconut, spicy, sweet and sour, tomato or soy sauce gravy served over steamed rice.

Onions, garlic, ginger, shallots and fresh or dried chilies serve as the foundation ingredients for most dishes. They are blended in a blender or pounded in a mortar and pestle to a "wet" paste, resembling applesauce. The paste is then fried in a small amount of oil with aromatic herbs and spices in a wok until fragrant. To this the main ingredients are added, resulting in the most "amazing" foods you will ever taste.

Home-style Malay cooking is all about adding flavor and aroma to foods. It relies heavily on aromatic herbs and spices according to Rose bte Sayuti, owner of RBS Restoran. "Necessary ingredients to have on-hand for preparing authentic Malay foods are lemon grass, kaffir limes, daun kemangi (basil), daun kesum (laksa leaf), bunga kantan (wild ginger flower buds), fresh curry leaves, turmeric, pandan (screwpine leaf), fennel, cumin, coriander, cloves, cardamom, star anise, mustard seeds, fenugreek, cinnamon, and nutmeg."

Asian vegetables such as kangkung, kai lan, long beans, bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, brinjals and sawi pendak make incredible side dishes like Sayur Lemak, a vegetable stew served in lightly spiced coconut gravy, Kangkung Goreng, a spicy stir fry dish featuring kangkung greens and belacan (shrimp paste), and Kari Terung, sliced brinjals simmered in curry sauce.

For most, steamed rice does not conjure up images of being delectable. For Malaysians however, generous portions of Nasi Kerabu and Nasi Lemak are not only full of flavor and aroma but are also picture perfect images embedded in the mind.

Nasi Kerabu, a regional specialty from the northeastern state of Kelantan, combines steamed rice tinted blue from the petals of the clitoria flower with raw vegetables and finely shredded aroma-packed herbs like mint, basil, lemongrass, turmeric and kaffir lime leaves garnished with salted fish, dried prawns, fish crackers or fried grated coconut.