- We visit Bali Kitchen in the East Village with Indonesian rapper Rich Brian to see how Indonesia's national dish is made.
- The dish was brought to Indonesia by Chinese immigrants in the 10th century.
- Now, people all over Indonesia eat the dish and create their own take on the beloved national dish.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
Following is a trasncript of the video.
Medha Imam: Nothing says comfort food quite like fried rice and Indonesia's national dish is no different. It's called nasi goreng.
And this dish takes fried rice to a whole 'nother level.
Hey guys, my name is Medha and I'm here with Indonesian rapper, Rich Brian. He just released his album this past July. It's called...
Rich Brian: The Sailor.
Medha: He's joining me today to teach me how to make Indonesian fried rice.
Brian: Aka nasi goreng.
Medha: Nasi goreng is said to date back to the 10th century when Chinese immigrants began migrating to Indonesia. With their migration came fried rice and the ensuing cultural exchange gave birth to nasi goreng. Indonesian fried rice.
Now this dish can be seen all over the country, eaten by all social classes as street food or at a five-star restaurant.
Jazz Souisay: Because Indonesia has islands so every islands, they form their own style of fried rice. Different kind of meat. Snake or bat or turtle. We can make a fried rice. And also in Bali, they use different kind of spices.
Brian: It's basically one of those, like, dishes where you just wake up in the morning and you just, like, you smell it. And you just know it's gonna be a good day. All right, I haven't cooked in a while so I'm, you know, it's fine.
Medha: But you usually cook, right?
Brian: I usually cook, yeah. And I've cooked fried rice before.
Medha: That sizzle.
Brian: Yep. All right, cool. I'm gonna mix it around. Like, generally when you cook fried rice. You put, like, the seasoning and stuff part like in first and then the rice always kinda comes last.
Just kind of like trying to get the seasoning just throughout the whole, the whole rice. I take the turmeric and like the... The garlic and oh . That was way too much pepper.
Medha: It's okay.
Brian: I did not know it was gonna come out that much. Can you hand me the sweet soy sauce?
Medha: Of course. The kecap's distinct flavor is what sets nasi goreng apart from Chinese fried rice and other fried rice variants.
Brian: When I first started learning English, I was super confused about, like, you know.
Medha: Kecap?
Brian: The fact that, like, tomato sauce is called ketchup and I was, like...
Medha: Like, what is this?
Brian: Yeah, exactly.
Medha: What's going on?
Brian: I'm pretty confident about this one. I think it's gonna be pretty good.
Medha: Oh. Oh!
Brian: This is not working out. I'm gonna stop trying to look cool for camera.
Medha: I think it's good.
Brian: You think it's good?
Medha: Yeah.
Brian: Okay.
Medha: Do you want more salt?
Brian: You know what? At this point, I just wanna eat. This is the cup that I'm... Is it super spicy? The white pepper's gettin' to her.
Medha: I'm fine, I'm fine.
Brian: Okay, cool. So while she's coughing, I'm gonna put the rice in this bowl and uh...
Medha: I'm gonna step out for two seconds.
Brian: Oh man, this is going so well guys. Do the old switcheroo. Make sure it's all. Ooh. Ooh, look at that. That looks super neat and, like, super delicious and not too spicy.
Jazz: And then on top, you put a sunny-side up and then a drizzle with fried shallots. And then put some pickles and chips, either shrimp chips or garlic chips.
Medha: So this is ours.
Brian: This is the fried rice that we made.
Medha: I think we did a great job.
Brian: Yeah, this is what your product looks like on Amazon and then this is what it looks like when it actually comes. Viral content!
Medha: Ooh.
Brian: Oh man. More salty than I thought.
Medha: I think it's a good amount of salt.
Brian: Okay, okay.
Medha: Yeah. I would eat this all day if I could.
Brian: Okay, the spices are definitely there. And it tastes great. Let's try the egg.
Medha: It's good. Especially with the egg.
Brian: Yeah, yeah. My mom used to make it, like, kind of like the way that we made it.
She wouldn't actually put any sweet soy sauce in it. So, like, as soon as I got here, I'm, like, oh, I miss Indonesian food right now and so now what I do because I live alone is, like, I love cooking.
It's, like, my favorite thing to do to relax and I would just, like, ask my mom or my dad for recipes of, like, certain dishes that they made me as a kid that I remember liking and I would just make it here.
This is like that little piece of home that I have. And I can have it any time as long as I have, like, ingredients and a kitchen and, like, I can just make it any time.
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