NASI ULAM; MALAYSIAN WARM HERBED RICE SALAD

Nasi ulam or Malaysian warm herbed rice salad is a heritage Malay and Nyonya/Peranakan (Straits born Chinese) meal. Nasi means Rice in Malay and Ulam is Salad and the marriage of these two elements presents a celebrated meal that is exotically aromatic, nutrition packed and irresistibly delicious.  

Making nasi ulam is not hard but the preparation can be time consuming. I used to watch my mother prepare this dish all alone. Lots of carefully and finely sliced ingredients. We are still growing our daun kaduk (betel leaves) as it is not sold here in Lahad Datu. The betel leaves is one of the main ingredients in nasi ulam. So, while that grows, we will improvise with what’s locally available from Lahad Datu market.  Don’t let the unavailability of something stop you from cooking. This is an opportunity to be creative. Nasi ulam is usually served with plain white rice but since we grow a generous amount butterfly blue pea flowers, we decided to enrich the rice with the high antioxidant content of butterfly blue pea flowers and to gain that natural blue color.

Hawa’s Artisan Kitchen has crafted our version of Nasi Ulam with most of the Asian herbs being foraged from our very own garden. Together it orchestrates Hawa’s Artisan Kitchen’s Nasi Ulam with a burst of natural colors. The canary yellow from turmeric roots, the amazing cobalt blue from the butterfly blue pea flowers, the fiery red from the chilies, the beautiful pink from the ginger torch and different shades of green from moringa, beans and Vietnamese coriander -  are all not only appetizing to the palates but also to the eyes.

Hawa’s Artisan Kitchen Nasi Ulam comes in two version. The Nasi Ulam Classic is paired with lightly fried turmeric fish  and creamy coconut fish gravy.  We also thought of our customers who chose not to consume any animal product. Our Nasi Ulam Vegan (without onion and garlic) is paired with tasty handmade Moringa and herbed tempeh balls which happens to be gluten free as well!

We hope you enjoy Hawa’s Artisan Kitchen’s Nasi Ulam as much as we enjoyed preparing and cooking this beautiful Malay heritage dish for you.

Selamat Menjamu Selera!