This burger was inspired by a local favourite dish called the 'Nasi Lemak' which literally translates as 'Fat Rice' 😂 but really means rice steeped in richness (coconut milk rice).
I personally really love burgers that have have fried eggs in them, paired with 'sambal' for the sauce and chicken for the patty I figured, it just made sense.

Burgers or any sandwich are very time consuming dishes to make. It takes a lot of effort and labor to make a good burger. There are many components to making a great burger and each component takes time, effort and if you want those components to stand out, technique. So for this posts I'll take time to explain how I make the "patty" and the sauce (sambal) in detail.

The patty is a pan grilled chicken and because we're selling this on the food truck grilling it from its raw state would take too long to cook so I came up with the idea to pre oven roast it and it'll be finished on the flat top at the food truck.

(picture taken by a local freelance photographer for menu purposes)

🐔 CHICKEN! ~

The chicken is a boneless chicken thigh that's brined for 30 minutes in a salt solution. I do this for chicken whenever it's in larger portions for example in this instance using chicken thighs or if I were to do a whole roasted chicken, I'll always a brining method. Brining breaks down the protein structure of the chicken making the meat more tender and extremely juicy. Once you go brine, you never go back!

Next it is drained from the brine then marinated with a Malay-style paste with a little twist. The marinade is done with garlic that's mashed into a paste using a pastel and mortar, sriracha (the little twist - a thai garlic and chili hot sauce) and tumeric powder. Set aside and save about a tablespoon of the spiced paste and rub the rest on to the chicken thighs. Leave it to mingle in the fridge with the spiced paste for about an hour or so. After that it then goes into a preheated oven at 200© for 15-20 minutes depending on the thickness of them chicken thighs. It can be served as it is if you're ... lazy (haha) but come on now let's get the skin crispy and caramelized. Get it onto a hot pan with some oil and skin side down crisp the skin up. While the skin is getting fried, used the saved marinade from earlier and spread on the chicken then flip it over for another 1 minute or so and the thighs are done! Do this to your chickens with these techniques from now on and you're sure to impress whoever you're cooking for, even yourself 😃

🍲 SAUCE! ~

Now for the sauce. The sambal is made with onions, garlic, dried chili, dried anchovies and pandan leaves. First, deseeded and then soak the dried chilies in warm water till it softens, about 10-15 minutes. While waiting for the chilies to soften, thinly slice onions like you would do caramelized onions and using a pastel and mortar, make a paste out of the garlic. Next, with a blender, blend the chilies with a little of the liquid it was soaking in until it forms a paste.

To a pot add oil and fry them over medium heat constantly stirring. Once they turn color and fragrant add in dried anchovies and continue frying for another 5 minutes and then pouring in the chili paste. Fry until the oil separates from pasta and you're done. This sauce goes good with rice and noodles as well. You can even add this paste to a soup and it'll be a really delicious spicy soup. Freeze this in packs and it'll store for months so be sure to make a larger batch and have ready awesome-ness on the fly.

🍳 OTHER AWESOME STUFF!

For the cucumber I use kyuri, a Japanese cucumber, just because it has a little better crunch and lesser seeds making it less watery. I cut this into half lengthwise and deseed the kyuri with a spoon then julienne it (you can use a mandoline on the julienne setting for this).

For me the egg I like fried eggs that are soft and wiggly on the white and the yolk runny. But that's how I like my fried eggs. You can go with the way you like your eggs according to your preference.

I layer it according to the picture above. Bun, chicken, sambal, egg, cucumber, bun.

If you'd like the specific measurements of each ingredients, feel free to comment below and I'll be glad to share it with you.

Hope you had a good time reading this and after the read giving you a reason as to why you should tip the people that serve you food 😂

Have a good weekend ahead fellow Steemians and keep steem rolling ahead! ~~ Choo Choo!!

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