Subject: Sambal belacan tomato
Message: Er, how exactly do you make that? Do you just add tomatoes when you're frying the sambal or is there something more to it?
In response to the above inquiry, which denotes a lack of understanding of the salient features of sambals, I have decided to give this SAMBAL 101 lecture.
Sambals (what the Hispanics would call SALSA, I guess) can be broadly divided into two categories ~ the SAMBAL TUMIS and the non-tumis. Tumis means saute or frying lightly. Sambal belacan is in the latter category and therefore DOES NOT INVOLVE ANY FRYING. If you "you just add tomatoes when you're frying the sambal" as the inquirer had suggested, you will just end up with one big mess.
Having said that, however, please don't let "big messess" put you off. Some of the most unaesthetically pleasing messes are quite delicious. For example, one day my mom asked my goblok Indon maid to pound the spices and then add to the limpa (spleen and other assorted offal) before frying. The goblok pounded the limpa together with the spices and then fried the whole mess. Looks a disgusting mess but was delicious. But I digress...
To make sambal belacan, you generally need chillies (big red ones, green ones, chilli padi or whatever you fancy ~ there is no hard and fast rule ~ I come from the whatever-I-can-lay-my-hands-on school of cooking), bawang merah (shallots), some sugar (like a teaspoon or tablespoon, depending on your taste), pinch of salt, maybe some garlic, some people add MSG but I generally do not use any MSG in my cooking at all; some lime (limau nipis or calamansi) juice but lemon juice, asam jawa (tamarind) juice or even limau kasturi would work (I guess some vinegar or grapefruit juice would do at a pinch) and of course some BELACAN.
You can try to make it without the belacan if you can't find any, but then it won't be sambal BELACAN, would it?
THIS IS WHAT YOU DO:
Get a frying pan or some tin foil. In my childhood days, we used to cut out the tin foil seal from 2 kg Milo tins for this purpose. Heat up the belacan. No oil, nothing. Just heat it up to get some "fragrance" emanating. This is best done while you're right beside it. Don't heat up the belacan and bugger off somewhere. One Thai university flatmate once did that only to discover that, in his absence, a Mat Salleh flatmate had thrown a fire blanket over it and sprayed the kitchen with half the contents of a fire extinguisher. Mat Salleh assumed, from the "pong," that something was on fire and took prompt remedial action.
You don't have to use excessive heat. Stop when you feel it smells right. Then, if you have a lesong, pound the belacan with the rest of the solid ingredients. Add the lime juice (or alternatives) at the end to adjust the acidity and consistency. Its not quite the same when you use a blender.
VARIATIONS
If you wanna make SAMBAL BELACAN TOMATO, add TOMATO to the above before adding the lime juice. Just be aware that tomatoes have some level of acidity and moisture, so you don't have to add so much lime juice.
If you wanna make SAMBAL BELACAN STRAWBERRY, add sour strawberries to the above before adding the lime juice. Just be aware that sour strawberries have some level of acidity and moisture, so you don't have to add so much lime juice. This recipe is for what to do when you've bought a punnet of strawberries and they turn out to be sour. Instead of chucking them out, make SAMBAL BELACAN STRAWBERRY. If they are sweet, just eat them, no need to go to the trouble of making it into a sambal belacan.
If you wanna make SAMBAL BELACAN MANGA/BINJAI/WHATEVER, add MANGA/BINJAI/WHATEVER to the above before adding the lime juice. Just be aware that of the acidity and moisture levels, so adjust the lime juice accordingly.
You can eat sambal belacan with just about any raw vegetable. I tried it and it goes down well with carrots, cabbage, lettuce, asparagus (yes, raw), aubergines, sour green apples (Brambleys and Granny Smith, I've been told they work a treat with Russets but I've never tried it myself).
Some vegetables you have to blanch first. (This involves dipping them into a pot of boiling water from anywhere between a few seconds to a minute.) These include okra (ladies fingers), jantung pisang, and what have you.
If you can find ulam wherever you are, great. If not, experiment!
SAMBAL TUMIS
As the name implies, this involves "tumis-ing" which is to saute, or lightly fry. You will need some cooking oil, chilli powder, tumeric powder, salt, sugar. If I do have to tumis, I like to use Alagappa's dhall "sambar" powder, which already has a nice mix of chilli, tumeric, jintan manis and jintan putih powders. However, as I belong to the why-bother-if-it takes-longer-to-cook-than-to-eat-it school of cooking, I generally don't bother with making sambal tumis. The most common sambal tumis is SAMBAL TUMIS IKAN BILIS which is commonly eaten with nasi lemak. You can also eat it with pisang goreng as well and if you down it with some robust red French wine, it works a treat. I recommend a Merlot or a Bordeaux.
You can check out some recipes of mine at:
www.lulu.com/azlan
as well as photographs and short stories. Proceeds from sales of most of the items go to either the Azlan Adnan Education Fund or my Humanitarian Fund.
Enjoy!
Copyright 2003-2006 Azlan Adnan Legal Notice
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