.p.rae.lu.dium.

inspired by the thought of not able to have my favourite food of our beloved home country in less than 6 months time, i've decided to try out some of the DIY-possible recipes when i'm in overseas later, provided the availability of ingredients :(

the first thing that comes to mind was - SAMBAL!!!
oh!! how can one feast on nasi lemak without the presence of its main character?

my wild experiment started off by heading to the market to get some fresh ingredients.

1. red chillis (be it dried or fresh) x 20
2. red onions (big) x 5
3. red onions (small) x 5
4. tamarind (asam jawa) x 1 packet
5. garlic x 3-5 cloves
6. serai x 3
7. salt (1 teaspoon)
8. sugar (3 tablespoons)
9. oil (half bowl)

 

STEP 1 - carefully remove chilli seeds and chopped onions. don't slice serai as shown in photo on right because it'll be difficult to remove them later. recommended to just roughly smashed them and put in the serai as whole while cooking. tamarind is made into liquid and its seeds are to be sifted away.

STEP 2 - because the poor me doesn't possess an electrical blender, will have to manually blend them using grandma's method- batu lesung. tangan dah lenguh dah :(

STEP 3 - ingredients blend to a pulp. whole process took me around 30 minutes. reminder: the finer the pulp, the better. 

STEP 4 - heat up the wok with 2 tablespoons of oil, put in onions to fry for about 5-10 minutes.

STEP 5 - next, add in the pulp and simmer for about 30 minutes.

STEP 6 - add in salt, sugar, tamarind liquid and serai then continue to simmer for another 15 minutes until reddish-brown colour and the oil separates from the mixture.

FINAL STEP - turn off the heat and my sambal is ready to be served!!! :O

eh.. wipe off that saliva from your keyboard. hahah!!