Reviewing Malay Taste - Nasi Goreng paste

I got chatting on Facebook the other day to the very lovely Jack from Hungry Communic-ations, about Nem Viet and their range of Vietnamese food products.  During the conversation he mentioned that Nem Viet has two sister product ranges, being Malay Taste and Thai Taste and I have to admit, that I dropped huge hints about maybe reviewing some of the products on the blog.

Well, this is the first of said reviews.  *chuckle*  With many thanks to Jack for taking me up on my ever-so-slightly embarrassingly overkeen offer.

As soon as I saw a Nasi Goreng paste was in the box, I knew what we'd be sampling first.  My dedication to a good Nasi Goreng is well documented on this blog and in the spirit of same, let me just direct you to my own home-made version which you'll find here.

Even though there is a perfectly reasonable Nasi Goreng recipe on the side of the jar, I am so keen on the stuff that I couldn't bear it not to carry some of the flavours that I know it should.  Hence, I followed my own recipe, but instead of using red Thai chilli paste, I used the Malay Taste Nasi Goreng paste.

Now, ordinarily, I don't use either oyster sauce or tomato paste in my Nasi Goreng but they are in the Malay Taste paste so I was interested to see how it would shape up with these two new flavours.

I added dark soy sauce, rice wine vinegar and fish sauce to the Nasi Goreng paste which helped to ensure that the flavours that I remembered so well were there.  However, I wasn't keen on the addition of tomato paste to the Malay Taste Nasi Goreng paste.  I felt that it was something of a Westernised copout.  I definitely missed the Thai lemongrass flavours and to add that in and either no tomato paste or just a little, would have improved the product no end.

Still, for all that, I liked it.  No, I really did!  If I was to give my own home-made Nasi Goreng marks out of 10, it would be a 10 (naturally).  The Malay Taste Nasi Goreng would come in at a good 8.5 by comparison.  Just lost a couple of points for the tomato paste and no lemongrass.

The chilli flavour is really good.  It doesn't knock your head off, just builds to a nice heat and keeps on a steady course instead of constantly increasing until you can't stand it any more, as lots of them do.  I like the oyster sauce addition, it gives it a deeper flavour profile than just fish sauce would have.

If I had have gone to someone's house for dinner and they'd have served Malay Taste Nasi Goreng, I wouldn't be disappointed.  It's different to mine, but it's still Nasi Goreng and that definitely floats my boat.

You can find out where to buy Malay Taste products from their website, on the "Where to buy" page.  One of the outlets is Amazon UK, so you've no excuse not to try them!  Currently there is just the Nasi Goreng kit available at around £2.50 for the one (you have to buy 6 in one go, so maybe get some for all the family or add the neighbours in!).

I'm very much looking forward to trying the other products now!