Nasi Goreng (Fried Rice)

Variations

• Nasi goreng ayam: The chicken version.
• Seafood: Loaded with shrimp and squid.
• Vegetarian: Tofu, tempeh, and vegetables instead of meat.
• Manis (mild): Skip the sambal and lean on kecap manis for a sweet, kid-friendly plate.

Tips

• The last step puts liquid back into a plate the whole recipe spent drying out, and that is the point of it. The runny yolk is not a garnish waiting to be admired: broken and stirred through, it is a sauce made at the table out of the one ingredient that never went into the wok. Gyudon states the same move in its own words when it drops an onsen tamago on top and the loose white becomes the sauce. It is also why the egg goes on top rather than in — scrambled into the rice during the frying it would be a texture, the way khao pad uses it, and the plate would have nothing arriving after the heat.
• The terasi never gets the stage that fermented shrimp paste usually gets. Laksa wraps its belacan in foil and toasts it two minutes a side, because "the harsh volatiles in fermented shrimp paste cook off. Skip those two minutes and the smell is in every spoonful, with nothing able to cover it"; nasi lemak blends it into a sambal and fries that slowly until the red oil separates. Here it goes straight into a wok already full of rice, for a couple of minutes, with no paste stage at all — which is why the tip says a little transforms it, and why the sweetness beside it is load-bearing. What sugar does names laksa's shrimp paste among the things sugar damps down: "leave the sugar out of any of them and each strong element steps forward on its own."
• Kecap manis is a syrup, and that is what lets it into a dish built on dryness. Satay gives the property — Indonesian sweet soy is "thick with palm sugar, so it glazes better and burns sooner" — and grilling puts the burning point of sugar near 150°C, far below a wok. What keeps it the right side of that is that it lands on a mass of cold rice rather than on bare metal, which is also why the instruction is to toss until evenly coated rather than to let it sit. Mie goreng notes what the 1:1 substitute costs: soy dissolved with brown sugar is "never as thick", so it carries more water onto the grains and runs off them onto the pan.
• Cold rice is key — fresh rice turns mushy.
• Kecap manis gives the signature sweetness and deep color; sub 1:1 soy sauce and brown sugar.
• Sambal and terasi (shrimp paste) add deep umami — a little transforms it.
• Stir-fry hot and fast so the grains stay separate.
• A runny fried egg to break and stir through is essential — don't skip it.