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Feed your appetite for cooking with Penguin’s expert authors

Feed your appetite for cooking with Penguin’s expert authors

Dinner with Rukmini

Browse all of the recipes in Rukmini Iyer’s cookbooks by ingredient.

Indonesian Coconut Rice, Crispy Chilli Tofu and Peanut Sambal

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Indonesian Coconut Rice, Crispy Chilli Tofu and Peanut Sambal

While this dish requires two roasting tins, it is worth the extra tray for the crispy tofu and shallots that complete this easy coconut rice dish.
Serves 4
Total 45 min
Prep 15 min
Cook 30 min
Easy

Introduction from Rukmini Iyer

This rice dish, known as nasi uduk in Indonesia, is rich with coconut, cloves, lemongrass and cassia. It’s traditionalled served with fried shallots and a peanut sambal. Here, the shallots crisp up in the tray alongside. This is one of my favourite weeknight dishes.

Ingredients

1 x 400ml tin of coconut milk
200g basmati rice, rinsed
1 stick of lemongrass, broken
5 cloves
1 piece of cassia/cinnamon stick
200g green beans
3 banana/eschalion shallots, very thinly sliced
2 x 225g blocks of smoked or unsmoked firm tofu, cut into 1cm thick triangles
2 tbsp sesame oil
½ red chilli, grated
2 cloves of garlic, grated
sea salt flakes
For the sambal:
1½ tbsp (about 75g) crunchy peanut butter
1½ tbsp dark soy sauce
2 tbsp lime juice
1½ red chillies, grated
2–4 tbsp water
To serve:
fresh coriander, chopped

Method

Preheat the oven to 210°C fan/230°C/gas 8.

Tip the coconut milk, rice, lemongrass, cloves, cassia or cinnamon stick and a pinch of sea salt flakes into a small lidded casserole dish or medium roasting tin, stir, then cover with the lid or tightly with foil (this is important so the rice cooks through) and set aside.

Tip the green beans, shallots and tofu into another roasting tin, large enough to just hold everything in one layer. Mix well with the sesame oil, chilli, grated garlic and ½ teaspoon of sea salt flakes. Make sure the tofu is on top so it can get crispy and transfer to the oven with the rice for 30 minutes, until the rice is cooked and the tofu, shallots and beans are crisp. (Check on the tofu after 20 minutes to make sure it doesn’t burn.)

Meanwhile, mix together the peanut butter, soy sauce, lime juice and chilli and add the water as needed for a thin pouring consistency. Taste and adjust the lime juice and soy sauce.

Once cooked, scatter the tofu with the coriander and serve the rice and tofu with the sambal.

Note: You do need two tins for this dish – it is worth it for the contrast of the crisp tofu and shallots against the almost buttery rice.

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From the book: The Roasting Tin Around The World

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