Nasi Bakmoy is an inter cultural dish between the Chinese and Javanese. According to a source,the word ‘bakmoy’ came from “Bah Mui” which originally using pork as the star ingredient. Once was said that the recipe creator was a Chinese man that came from Fujian , China who migrated to Jogjakarta and married to a balinese woman. One day, as a Chinese immigrant in a strange country with limited Chinese food availability, he missed braised pork rice (LU ROU FAN/卤肉饭) , the wife with zero knowledge of cooking Chinese food tried hard to duplicate the dish and incorporate local ingredients such as petis udang (fermented shrimp paste) and kecap manis (sweet soya sauce). From that moment on, the Chinese man talked alot about the wife’s dish and words were spread from mouth to mouth. Nevertheless, a lot of Indonesians who do not eat pork so in some kitchen, they substitute pork with chicken meat.
There are 3 elements on this dish, rice, topped with tofu & ground meat stirfry and soup with kecap rawit (chili soy sauce) or sambal petis ( Chili with fermented shrimp paste) so many versions of nasi bakmoy, in my hometown around Central Java you would find nasi bakmoy made of chicken meat with non-fried firm tofu (the original nasi bakmoy has deep fried tofu) while in D’s hometown, they usually serve nasi bakmoy with extra fried prawn cake (bakwan udang) and sambal petis .
One day, D told me that he is craving for nasi bakmoy and I thought that it was a good idea to make it. So I googled some of the recipes online. Most of the recipes I found are using chicken meat, but I love the originals, so when I did some experiment in the kitchen I used lean pork meat instead of chicken meat. For those who do not eat pork , you may substitute pork with some other meat of your choice.