A breakfast to dye for

Kelantan, in the northeastern corner of the Malaysian peninsula, is rice country. Nowhere is this more evident than at Siti Khadijah Market in Kota Bharu, the state capital. In the market's first-floor food hall, platters of rice-centric breakfast spill across the display counters of white-tiled stalls.

There is nasi berlauk - plain white rice topped with various sauces - and nasi dagang, unpolished red rice steamed with coconut milk to eat with fish or chicken curry. (Nasi means 'cooked rice' in Malay.) Miniature baskets of woven leaves enclose squares of pressed rice called ketupat, and banana leaf cones hide turmeric-tinted rice studded with chunks of white tuna. Thin coconut milk and fish gravy simmer in large kettles, ready to be ladled over laksa (round rice noodles) or laksam, rolls of thick steamed rice flour sheets that will be sliced into chunky coils.

There are also mounds of violet rice, the main ingredient for the Kelantanese rice salad nasi kerabu (in Malay, kerabu means salad). Place an order and a vendor spoons the rice into a banana leaf-lined brown paper cone, adds sliced herbs and vegetables - Vietnamese mint, Thai basil, lemongrass and lime leaves, bean sprouts, long beans and cucumber - and grated coconut dry-fried with flaked fish. With tiny ladles, she (male food vendors are a rarity) drizzles two sauces - one, coconut milk-based and sweetened with white sugar, and the other made with budu, a thick, pungent fish sauce - then garnishes the lot with keropok, or deep-fried fish paste chips. The result is a delicious textural mash-up - a filling yet refreshing mix of cheap, ordinary ingredients elevated by preparation to gourmet status.

Nasi kerabu has most likely been around in one form or another for generations. Coconut, rice, chillies, herbs and fish would have long been abundant in eastern peninsular Malaysia, a region veined with rivers and bordered by the South China Sea that boasts expanses of forest and jungle and has a long history of rice cultivation. Malaysian Rohani Jelani, a Cordon Bleu-trained cooking instructor and owner of the Bayan Indah Culinary Retreat in Kuala Lumpur, remembers her mother speaking of 'old uncles who would go into the forest and pick more than 10, even 20, kinds of herbs and leaves' that would then be slivered and added to nasi kerabu. Today's version, made with fewer, primarily cultivated herbs and vegetables, 'is probably a simplified, domesticated version of what it used to be', Rohani says.

When and why the dish acquired its characteristic hue is a mystery. Traditionally, rice for nasi kerabu was dyed blue using the blue flowers of the climber plant bunga telang (Clitoria ternatea). These days most cooks eschew the time and labour involved in tinting a batch of rice in favour of artificial colouring. It requires at least two cups of fresh flowers, removing each bloom's stamen, pounding them with water and then squeezing to extract the dye. Rohani speculates that dyeing the rice was originally a way to render special a dish underpinned by plain old rice. The dye adds no flavour, but 'it's a way for a cook to distinguish an ingredient that one encounters every day, to show that, 'Look, I've gone to a lot of effort to make this dish.''

To discern a well-made nasi kerabu, use your eyes, Rohani advises. Rice that veers more towards grey than vivid violet is preferable, an indication that the cook has gone to the trouble of dyeing her grains naturally rather than resorting to artifice. Avoid versions with carrots and cabbage in the vegetable mix, a sign that a vendor is keen to increase bulk rather than quality. For the best nasi kerabu, Rohani says, there's no substitute for elbow grease. 'The herbs must not be chopped or bruised, but shredded really fine. Otherwise the dish doesn't look nice, and it's coarse on the palate.'