Ben found a pack of belachan in the store room. I must have bought it a while ago but reluctant to cook it as it will stink up the apartment.
Ben decided to use it to make some Sambal Belachan with Dried Shrimps as a condiment for rice or noodle dishes. We love sambal belachan but making it at home will require me to burn a lot of scented candles to get rid of the smell.
Ingredients
- 50g dried shrimps (soaked in 1 cup of water, reserved soaking liquid)
- 200g shallots
- 30g garlic
- 20g ginger
- 1/4 cooking oil
- 25g dried chili – hydrated (deseeded if you do not want it to be too spicy)
- 150g fresh chili (deseeded if you do not want it to be too spicy)
- 4 stalks of lemongrass (use white part only)
- 50g dried toasted belacan
- 1/2 cup cooking oil
- 2 teaspoons sugar
Source: Spice N’ Pans
Instructions
| Re-hydrate the dried chili until soften and remove seeds if desired. |
| Soak the dried shrimps for 20 minutes and strain the liquid, reserving it for later use.
Use a food processor to grind the Dried shrimp into a course grind. |
| Prepare the shallot, garlic and ginger paste in the food processor with a 1/4 cup of oil.
Remove for later use. |
| In the same food processor, add the fresh chilies, lemon grass, toasted belachan and 1 cup of the soaking liquid of the dried shrimps. Spread out evenly and processed until a fine grind. |
| Heat up a wok or a deep frying pan in medium heat, add 1/2 cup of cooking oil and when the oil is heated, add the shallot paste. Fry until fragrant and you can see the oil rise up in the paste. |
| Add in the chili paste and dried shrimps. |
| Fry on medium heat until the chili is dried, stirring often. It takes about an hour to get to the dried consistency and dark colour that we like. |
| Add the sugar to balance the taste.
Let cool and store in an air tight container in the refrigerator. Ben was very delighted at the success of this recipe. |
