Nasi Goreng with a helping of the Big Fat Quiz
What I love about Nasi Goreng is that it is a comfort dish that can be quickly whipped up, and yet it doesn’t skimp on a sense of festivity. It is very colourful and beautifully spiced. It is as various as we people are — coming in as many permutations and combinations as we would like to create. My version of this dish was something I invented at 11 pm in a hangry mood after harsh day at work. Coming home to an empty fridge and kitchen can be one of the most weakening of moments.
It was only when I ordered the Nasi Goreng at a pretty restaurant in Bombay that I realised I had been making it for myself all along. Sure, mine doesn’t have the slightly sweet soy sauce in it, nor does it include the seafood, but it is equally comforting. I grew up in a vegetarian household, and all food at home is vegetarian. My Nasi Goreng begins with the merry sizzle of garlic and the crackle of ginger, the fragrance of frying shallots and one large dried red chilli slit down its length or cut into small oblong slices, frying away in vegetable oil. I add a tablespoon of butter and wait for the colour of the oil to change to a fiery red, before adding the rice and tossing it about. And then I get to my favourite part — topping it up with fried eggs, probably a couple them, perched atop the mound of rice, looking absolutely resplendent.
I don’t wish to narrate recipes, but this one is so much a part of my experience, and each step such an important memory for me, that I ended up narrating it. In that moment while I am looking for ingredients to put the dish together, getting hungrier by the minute, I imagine these steps and they give me the patience I need.
I love this dish a lot because it tolerates any and all variations. It is a very giving dish — with a burst of spices served up on a bed of soft rice. Each bite is heterogeneous-within and homogenous-without — the perfect mix of golden fat, soft starch and flavourful spice. Each mouthful serves up a satisfying bed of rice that sits on the tongue and spreads its soothing warmth while all the spices go off in a million tiny explosions.
Like shows that are old favourites, the experience of homemade Nasi Goreng only adds meaning with each replay — revealing some nuances, and layering up memory over the years, all of which come back to me from the first delightful bite. A bowl of steaming Nasi Goreng in front of you helps loosen the knots in your shoulders, and can make you feel ready for any surprise. You sit in your sweet little corner, sedate with joy and warmth, and what you need is something that can pique your interest without you having to sit up in attention.
And as you sit there, what you need to soother your eyes and soul is any old episode of the Big Fat Quiz. I personally prefer any of the ones which has Noel Fielding in it, and on a particularly harrowing day, the 2012 episode featuring James Corden, Jack Whitehall and drunken pizza.
