Nasi Kerabu Kelantan (Kelantan Rice Salad)

This is a very healthy rice salad that is tasty and nutritious with lots of herbs and rich in Omega 3 from the sardines.  The rice is coloured with blue pea flowers.  The sardine fish floss can be made ahead and frozen until ready to use.  You might want to reheat it by tossing it in a hot wok for a few minutes. Below is a picture of the blue pea flowers:

For the Fish Floss:

1 Kg sardines, cleaned and gutted.

2 cups firmly packed grated coconut (white part only)

16 shallots, peeled

4 lemon grass/serai, white part only and sliced thinly

2" ginger, skinned and sliced

molasses sugar, pepper and salt to taste

1.  Heat up a grilling pan and grill sardines until just cooked. Remove bones and flake fish. Mash and keep aside.

2.  Pound shallots, lemon grass and ginger until fine.

3.  In a wok, dry-fry the grated coconut until quite brown. You can see some that are still white but quite dry.

4.  Add in the pounded ingredients and the fish meat.Continue to fry, tossing constantly with your ladle until fragrant and quite dry, about 20 minutes.

5.  Stir in molasses sugar, salt and pepper to taste.

6.  Divide into 4 portions. Each portion will be for 4 servings.  You will need 1 portion here and freeze the other 3 portions for use another day.

For the blue rice:

300 g rice

20 clitoria (blue pea) flowers

1 lemon grass, about 4" length, bruised

water for boiling rice

salt to taste 

1.  Wash rice with a few change of water.  Add salt and lemon grass.

2.  In an electric blender, blend flowers with some water until fine.  Strain the coloured water into the rice cooker.  Top up with more water, up to double the volume of the rice.  

(In this case, 300g rice is actually two measuring cups of rice and water should come up to level 2 markings inside the rice cooker).

3.  Put rice to boil as you normally would.  

4.  After cooking, keep rice warm until ready to use.

For the sambal tumis sauce:

3 tbsp chilli boh (Dried chilli paste or sambal olek)

5-6 shallots, peeled

2 cloves garlic, peeled

1/2" ginger

1 stalk lemon grass, about 4" length, sliced

1.5" square belachan/prawn paste

1/2 cup coconut milk

1 tbsp tamarind paste, mixed with a little water and discard seeds

cooking oil

2 tbsp brown sugar

salt to taste

1.  In a food processor or mortar and pestle, process or pound shallots, garlic, ginger and lemon grass until fine.  Mash in the prawn paste and the chilli paste.

2.  Heat up some oil in a wok and fry blended ingredients until fragrant in medium fire.

3.  Add in tamarind paste and coconut milk and bring to boil, stirring constantly for about 5 minutes.

4.  Add in sugar and salt.  Sauce should be not too thick in consistency.

5.  Dish out and serve as a condiment at the side with the rice salad.

Tossing of the rice salad:

You can use a variety of herbs you like for the rice. The common ones are turmeric leaves, basil leaves, cekur (finger root) leaves and polygonum leaves.  You can also add thinly sliced string/long beans or four-angled beans and blanched bean sprouts.

2 fresh turmeric leaves, remove center rib, roll up and slice thinly

1 bunch of basil leaves (use either Thai Basil or Sweet Basil), sliced thinly

1 bunch cekur leaves, sliced thinly

1 bunch polygonum/daun kesum leaves, sliced thinly

100-150g long beans or 4-angled beans, sliced thinly

2 cups bean sprouts, loosely packed, blanched

1.  In a large deep serving bowl, toss the rice with the sliced herbs and the fish floss close to serving.

2. Serve rice accompanied with the grilled assam fish or prawns and sambal tumis at the side.  You can also serve it with salted duck eggs, if preferred.