Garlic Rice

Garlic Rice It's fun to write big and red!!
Serves 2-4

Ever eaten at Manhattan’s Fish Market?? No, not the one in New York. It’s here, in Malaysia.
I know it’s even in Singapore now, but I don’t know why it’s not as good there, and portions are very stingy over there too. Here in Malaysia, the portions are big and generous, so much rice and fries that it’s hard to gobble them all up. Haha, rice and fries are cheap. But I don’t care if they’re cheap or what, it’s tasty and I don’t mind them giving me more, especially the rice.

Whenever Mike orders a personal platter, he will always ask to replace the portion of the fries with rice. He loves the rice, so do I. I order kids meal, usually, and I always go for Live Bait, which is calamari with fries and I always change that to rice :) . I love their fried calamari, my favourite from MFM.

So, to serve that Double Fennel Roasted Chicken, I made this garlic rice, actually a second attempt to copycat that nice rice from MFM and I finally did it. Just that they didn’t use basmathi, they used ordinary local rice. Basmathi is so expensive, this one that I bought was RM9.30/kg. Basmathi Moghul…. Wow.. the name already demands a high price. Well, not all basmathis are this expensive (some only cost half of this), just that when I decided to cook this, all neighbouring shops are closed for Friday prayers except for this shop and the only 1kg pack they have is “Moghul”. Please do not use Thai fragrant rice, or short grain to do this rice. Anything sticky is a no no here. You have to use light and fluffy rice. Local rice will be fine and even siam rice, but not fragrant rice, ok.

1 cup basmathi rice
2 cups water
2 large cloves of garlic, grated (Use more if you like)
1 heaped Tbsp grated carrots
½ tsp salt
1 tsp butter
Small pinch of turmeric powder for colour

1. Wash the rice. Drain well.
2. Put everything together and cook. (I steam mine for 30 minutes)
3. Fluff rice with chopsticks before serving.