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There are already so many types of sambal, but I think I came up with a new one last week. I needed sambal for my favorite Indonesian side dish: sambal telur! These are boiled and then fried eggs in sambal sauce. That sounds fantastic, right?
Many of you will know that a disadvantage of moving to another country is that the supermarkets are different. Some things you can’t buy everywhere, like your favorite peanut butter or in this case sambal.
But as you’ve noticed, I am quite adventurous in the kitchen, and I try to make a lot of things myself. Sambal was also on my ‘to cook’ list, and on a quiet Sunday I decided to do it. But then I found out that I didn’t really have what all the ingredients that I needed. So what did I do? I used everything I could. Onions instead of shallots, cayenne peppers instead of lomboks… There was one thing I got lucky with: I could get shrimp paste from the Chinese toko downstairs! Some dishes really can’t exist without this ingredient that many people don’t even know about!
I partly followed a recipe for sambal, and it really was like magic. At first the mix was very watery, then boiled down to become more dry and then suddenly formed a mass. I was looking forward to it. And the taste? Awesome, so my dad is happy to have some kind of sambal again that tastes like his favorite sambal manis!
So after that I could make my sambal telur, and I was a happy puppy.
Shall we go cook then?
Ingredients
For about 500 gr sambal
- 150 gr cayenne peppers
- 2 onions (400 gr)
- 40 gr garlic (a small bulb)
- 50 gr shrimp paste (less if you’re not a real fan of it)
- 200 ml of water
- 100 ml sunflower oil
- 1 lime (for zest)
- 100 gr white sugar
- 40 gr tamarind concentrate
- 5 g salt
Preparation
Chop the onions coarsely. Crush and peel the garlic cloves. Cut the peppers in half and remove the seeds. Handle the peppers with gloves, wash your hands well afterwards, and make sure you don’t touch your eyes! Roast the shrimp paste in a pan for a few seconds until it becomes fragrant. Combine all this in a food processor or hand blender and add the water.
Grind everything until it becomes a fine paste with some pieces left in it. This mix is still watery, but don’t panic! Patience is a virtue and everything will be fine. Transfer your mixture to a frying pan and heat it until it begins to simmer. You can easily tell when it starts to boil. Let the mix simmer without a lid until it really thickens. This will take about 15 to 25 minutes on medium heat. Keep stirring often so that it doesn’t burn.
Once the sauce has thickened, add the lime zest and sunflower oil. Let this cook for about 10 minutes, but keep stirring every few minutes. When you see the mixture starting to separate from the oil and thicken, add the tamarind, sugar and salt.
Keep stirring and you will see that emulsion occurs and the sambal will become a thicker mixture! Let this mixture simmer for about 5 minutes while stirring. Taste and add more sugar or salt if you like. Let it cool completely before moving it from the pan to a jar!
Voilà, real magic!
But the eggs then, how do you make them?
Boil 6 eggs for 7 to 10 minutes. Shock them in cold water and peel them. Place a frying pan on the stove and heat a finger of sunflower oil in it. When the oil is hot, place the eggs in the pan. Turn them over after a few minutes. Heat a little oil in another pan and add three tablespoons of sambal Tati. Add the eggs to the sambal and heat everything together until it has slightly thickened and browned and voilà!
The result
Wow, just wow! I was really very surprised and satisfied with this recipe! Now I can make this sambal whenever I feel like it, or just make a bigger batch so I can always make telur eggs! I mean, who needs a shop when you can make things yourself, right?
Of course, now that I’m in the Netherlands for a while, I can take back a lot of sambal or just have someone send a package. I will, but it’s also fun to make things yourself and experiment. And this is why cooking is really my thing! I will (apparently) never stop discovering things! Well, I wish you a nice weekend, friends, and see you again soon!
