Nasi goreng USA, commonly found in Kedai Mamak or any a la carte restaurant in Malaysia. Considered by many as the top tier Nasi Goreng. There are various interpretations of what the USA stands for in Nasi Goreng USA. Some say it stands for Udang Sotong Ayam, and you’ll find it to be true in certain places. Other times; in this case most times, and I guarantee you would; you’d find nasi goreng USA served with beef or buffalo meat in the form of daging masak merah, topped perfectly with a sunny side up instead. When we thought food origin stories could never get more complicated, turns out we were wrong. This is some tough subject to extract a conclusion from. We have exhausted ourselves and yet still haven't come up with 100% complete view of the story. Nevertheless, here’s the story; we’ve found so far; behind Nasi Goreng USA by Gramus.
Here’s the first side of the story:
Appearance-wise, this fried rice has a distinct red colour; coming from the heavy use of tomato sauce/ketchup; which by the way is a very Thai thing to do. It was served by a Thai cook, nicknamed “Go Jek” to the American servicemen during the Vietnam war in Khorat and Udon Thani base. Things just got more interesting when a lady named Khunying Sureepan Maneewat claimed to be the first to make this dish. It happened when she was working in a restaurant at Don Mueang Airport. An airline ordered for breakfast and lunch, but then the flight got cancelled leaving her with a lot of unused sausages and sunny side ups. She then mixed everything together with leftover rice and ate it herself, until an American soldier saw her and asked the name of the dish. She then somehow decided to call it American fried rice. She did not clearly remember when she created it but sometime before 1954 for sure before she left to the UK to study.
After that, types of protein source she used would depend on availability; sometimes it’s sausages, other times it’d be chicken. Whatever was available would go into the dish. Nonetheless, it was always the same format: an egg and a kind of meat; sometimes multiple.
Second side of the story:
Every; not all, but mostly; Nasi Goreng in peninsular Malaysia used one common template. We call it "Nasi Goreng Biasa" (Regular Fried Rice). Nasi Goreng Kampung / Nasi Goreng Ikan Asin (Anchovy fried rice) has one tiny distinction where belacan (fermented shrimp paste) was added to give it a signature traditional touch. Other than the paste, it uses the same Nasi Goreng Biasa template.
Second. Nasi Goreng Cina, Nasi Goreng Pattaya, and Nasi Goreng Thai shared another common template: Nasi Goreng Cina (Yangzhou fried rice) template. Characterized by its light color without the addition of sweet soy sauce; using a minute amount of regular Chinese style (salty) soy sauce instead.
Then there’s this red fried rice which was Thai influenced and we’ve talked about this in the first side of the story.
Lastly, there’s the mamak template which was characterized by the heavy use of spices; exactly what a real Indian would do.
The other Nasi Goreng USA (Udang Sotong Ayam) that you’d find in certain places in its essence is Nasi Goreng Biasa with stir fried prawn, calamari, and chicken. You won’t get confused because it’s totally different in colour to the first one. This one would have more brown-ish colour and no gravy on the side.
Now that we have finally presented all sources we can find related to Nasi Goreng USA, it’s time to discuss: What happened then until it becomes ‘The’ Nasi Goreng USA we all know? Red fried rice + sunny side up + daging masak merah?
Like we said earlier, we haven’t yet figure out the story in its entirety, but here’s what we can propose with our limited information:
From an etymological point of view, it would be more convincing that Udang Sotong Ayam existed amongst Malaysians before the other. Let’s say American Fried Rice existed among Malaysians before USA, then it seems to fit more to the narrative if it would later be called Nasi Goreng Amerika with direct translation adaptation.
Then the question arises, how come it ended up with daging masak merah out of, well anything else?
It seems possible that American Fried Rice was brought by some random Thai cook to the Malay peninsula. Knowing that Nasi Goreng USA actually existed was a plus point for marketing reasons. One, because people are generally familiar with the name. Two, it kinda refers to the same thing. So then he started selling American fried rice as Nasi Goreng USA with a twist, to fit Malay taste preference. Since he/she is a Thai, then it would be convenient if he/she would process the meat into something the Malay would like yet still keeping a Thai touch to it. Turns out the cook decided to make it into Daging Masak Merah, and by the way it surprisingly conforms to the taste palette altogether with its color palette; which could possibly be another trial and error story one after the other until it was decided that daging masak merah was the one. Well, not to be surprised readers! People seemed to like it; because apparently you can find it everywhere until this day; and started making this cook’s Thai version of Nasi Goreng USA which was by the way a pretty clever wordplay if you think about it.
The story was 80% fictional, but we bet we nailed around 62% to the true story. But until then here's the story behind the bite of Nasi Goreng USA, proudly brought to you by GRAMUS.
Source:
Daks, N. and Greeley, A. (2015). Nong's Thai Kitchen: 84 Classic Recipes that are Quick, Healthy and Delicious. Singapore: Tuttle Publishing.
https://web.archive.org/web/20080219094619/http://www.sakulthai.com/DSakulcolumndetailsql.asp?stcolumnid=5171&stissueid=2717&stcolcatid=1&stauthorid=58
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