Nasi Lemak

Last Friday saw, once again, our attempt to recreate the taste of home while in a place that has neither the comfort of a hawker centre nor the convenience of a wet market. Culinary haven the Hendon Camp cookhouse may never be, but at least it served Nasi Lemak once every two weeks. [Sam, can consider leh].

Mr Pang and Mr A Lim kicked off the process by making batch after batch of Nasi Lemak -- rice cooked in coconut milk and pandan leaves -- fragrant, rich, and extremely tasty.

Mr B Lim started the ball rolling by preparing our homemade Nasi Lemak sambal belachan. The translation "chilli sauce" just doesn't do this intriguing dish justice: a combination of shrimp paste, dried shrimp, chillies, lemongrass, galangal, ginger, garlic, shallots and some tinkering with lemon zest, lemon juice and sugar, this is the epitome of the Middletown fireman's conception of cat piss, and is sure to antagonise any angmoh living in the house.

The most technically-challenging dish done, Mr C Cheong and Mr B Lim then proceeded to prepare the following: fried luncheon meat, fried egg omelette, fried ikan bilis (anchovies) with roasted peanuts, while I sliced cucumber and pottered around looking busy. Meanwhile, Mr I Chow proved himself an asset in the kitchen by lending a helping hand whenever, well, help was sought.

The result -- an authentic Singapore dish we are proud of, but which was labelled (wrongly, of course) by someone as "disgusting". I leave you, dear reader, to make your own judgements.