Sambal Paste

I always blend sambal paste, cook and bottle them up so that when I want to cook the ikan bilis sambal or the assam fish curry I won't have to peel onions and cut serai so it cuts the cooking time at least by 70% and this is important since we are taking into account that people are always complaining that they need more than 24 hours in a day to have things done properly and most of them will sacrifice a good home cooked meal to finish up office work etc. So here I am going to give you the recipe for two types of sambal to blend, cook and bottle.

Red Chilly Sambal Paste

Ingredients :

4 tablespoons of chilly boh ( about two handfuls of dried chillies)
4 stalks of serai (lemon grass) cut into little pieces
1 inch of kunyit
Approximately 2 thumb size belacan (shrimp paste)
4 or 5 buah keras (candlenuts).......... optional
1/2 thumb -size lengkuas (another form of ginger root)...........optional

Method :

Blend all ingredients. Heat about a soup-bowl of cooking oil and fry until fragrant. Spoon into a clean dry bottle and leave to cool before capping. Needs to be refrigerated.

Note: If using dried chillies, they need to be soaked in hot water till soft.

This is just a base sambal that can be used for several recipes.