K'tan post: Kelantan and nasi (rice)

Whenever someone mentioned about Kelantan, or if I chanced on the subject, my first respond or thought would be “great food, damn cheap”. Seriously.

There was once this article in The New Straits Times (Malaysia) citing that Kelantan has, at least 10 types of rice (rice = nasi in Malay) even though she is not the main producer of rice in Malaysia (Kedah is, for those who doesn’t know, one of the north - west state of the Peninsular) i.e. Kedah produces the rice but Kelantan cooks it, get it? This, I absolutely agree. To make things clearer, the article was not referring to the how the rice are processed or anything along the line of rice processing and production e.g. into beras pulut or normal, plain rice whatsoever, but rather on how the rice are cooked, prepared or served. So far, during my stays there, I’ve encountered nasi kerabu, nasi dagang, nasi berlauk, nasi tumpang, nasi kukus, nasi ambang, nasi jeje and nasi air. Since I stayed with relatives most of the time, I discovered that the folks here basically eat rice at least 3 times a day! (Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Add supper and tea time then it’ll be more). How appropriate when you put down that rice is a staple food in Malaysia, especially here.

Here I give you some examples of the local favourites.

(This is a pic of a typical nasi berlauk with fish)

For nasi berlauk and nasi dagang, the local favourites among them would be

• gulai ikan kayu @ ikan tongkoI with ikan kering
• gulai serati (serati is a family of duck)
• kopes (the leftover parts of chicken e.g. feet, internal organs... you get it.)
• chicken kerutup.

As for the nasi kerabu (the blue colored rice, sometimes plain white. Some people refer to it as “salad rice”), take a pick between these tasty accompanying side dishes:

• telur masin (salted egg)
• ikan goreng tepung (fried fish in batter)
• roasted beef
• solak lada (seasoned fish and coconut – stuffed chili)

with lots and lots of ulam (mixed vege that comes along with the rice), chili and sambal kelapa (coconut sambal, if you like more zest).

With these much choices of rice why bother looking for nasi lemak here in Kelantan, unless you wanna eat a sweet nasi lemak then.