I use this sambal for anything that requires a rempah. Often used in Singaporean, Malaysian and Indonesian dishes. I normally pre-fry my sambal so that it is ready to use and makes cooking really fast.
A few examples of what you can do with it:
- Add mashed taucheo or miso paste, you get the mee siam paste. Add asam when cooking.
- Add asam when cooking, you get asam pedas.
- Along with lemon grass, dried prawns, cumin, galangal, coriander seed powder and turmeric, we get laksa.
- As with (2) but add grated ginger, we get Singapore curries, or Thai massaman curry.
- As with (2) but add some palm sugar, we get satay marinade, add peanuts and asam and you get the satay peanut sauce.
- Cook with onions and garlic, you get sambal, and can be prawns, cuttlefish, fish (stuffed in the belly and fried), eggs, lady’s fingers, etc etc.
- Mix it with kecap manis to marinade meat and then bake, you get panggang kecap, what we get in hawker centers in Singapore everywhere!
- Used for rendang, first fry this with the meat, then add lemon grass, kaffir leaves, some curry powder, coconut milk and shredded coconut.
- For curries, add cumin powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder, curry leaves then fry the meat, then add water. When meat and veggies are cooked, add coconut milk and a quick boil.
The options are really endless.
Basic Sambal
Ingredients
- 10 red chillies cut into 1 inch, dry or fresh, it doesn't matter to me
- 1 big onion cut into 2cm pieces
- 5 cloves of garlic
- 5 candlenuts or 10 almond nuts
- 1 Tbsp belachan
- 1 thumb size ginger sliced
- 1/4 cup of oil
Instructions
- Blend everything except the oil.
- Heat a pan with the oil till hot.
- Add the paste, and lower the heat to medium.
- Keep stirring so that it doesn't burn.
- When the oil turns red, it means you are done! I like mine cooked a bit darker.
