Today I make sambal belacan chilli paste again. The ones I made last week were all gone and I only gave 2 cups worth away. The daughter complained she wanted to eat more.

We happened to go near a Chinese supermarket yesterday so I bought the biggest bag of dried chillies and 3 packets of fresh chillies I think amounted to a kg. I spent yesterday deseeding the dried chillies of as much of the seeds as I could. Took quite awhile but I have breaks for chocolates and coffees so no hardships.

Today daughter is home to help do washing up so she asked me to cook. In return I have to mark a big tub as hers and everyone don’t touch.

The recipe is simple and please adjust to your taste.

NOTE

• How spicy you want your sambal is entirely up to you. Sometimes you just cannot get spicy chillies and at other times they blow your head off – so there cannot be a fixed recipe.
• If the sambal is too spicy add more sugar. I prefer to use brown sugar but it is entirely up to you.
• Chillies seeds do not make your sambal more spicy. Please Google and read or should I say educate yourself. I hate to eat chilli seeds.
• Toasted belacan gives a more umami taste.
• Salt helps to draws out taste of everything so add some.
• Adding vinegar helps in preserving your sambal but hey it never last in my house! You can bottle them, vacuum seal them and they last forever.
• It took me on low heat about 2 hours for this batch discounting the deseeding dried chillies time and boiling time.
• Remember the taste mature the next day and it taste more mellowed.
• Enjoy eating knowing that your sambal is cooked with love and you can eat as much as a jar a day – kekekekeke
• There are so many uses – can add in dried shrimps, ikan billis, onions, garlic and anything you like to it.

“I wanted to make this album for a long time and finally have a double boiler. I hope you will try and make this. This was taught to me by my ex MIL who hailed from China. She passed away nearly 3 decades ago but she taught me a lot of 康熙帝 Kāngxī Di’s cooking and Chinese herbs.” – 25th January 2015 (Facebook)

My original blog was lost but due to Facebook’s albums I was able to retrieve some photos and this album. Today while talking to a lady I was suddenly reminded of this as I do need to partake in some goodness aka pure chicken essence with herbs, as I am still not as strong after suffering and recovering from Covid19. I need to renew my energy and boast some strength.

I decided to take out my double boiler and start working on ‘healing’ myself a bit. So I resurfaced these photos and redo this album in my new blog. This time my blog would never be lost as hubby has saved all in 3 different places, 3 copies – kekekekeke He had also written a program to update automatically each time I update it.

As I boil more and more ‘healing soups’ I will be posting new photos but for the moment these are old photos just to explain the procedures. I never post soups much even though we have herbal soups at least twice a week. I always thought people know how to boil soups. Recently I realised this is not actually true.

I do know that nowadays many people won’t be boiling tonic soups or make chicken essence like this but I have always drank chicken essence this way. I would never drink the jars stuff as when comparing the taste, the jar stuff tasted like chicken stock with ajinomoto. To me they are only suitable for seasoning a dish.

A lot of tonic stuff nowadays come in packets and you only need to steep them with hot water. Again that’s fine but they are not the Real McCoy.

This IS The Real McCoy.

I make this sambal udang balacan/belacan a few times a year. It is when we, the family kept asking me when I am making again or when my friends persuade me “when you next make sambal udang belacan can I book 10 jars please” then only I make.

Now I am not sure how to write a fix recipe as I have never measured my ingredients. I taste as I make and add a bit of this and that to make it resemble the taste I know. The taste of how my mother’s sambal used to taste like.

When I was a youngin’ when my mother made this, we always make them into sandwiches Do you know dried shrimps sambal that has a generous amount of dried shrimps taste amazing with buttered bread? If you have not try before, try it. My husband loves this on buttered brioche rolls.

Now as I said I have not measured my ingredients. when I asked my mother she will tell me a bowl of this and half a bowl of that. So I will attempt to tell you. However sambal is one of those dish you can make your own. There is absolutely no right or wrong. When I first started making I tried to add this and that (not mentioned by my mother) but in the end I do not like the taste. Not nostalgic lah. so I stick back to the basic ingredients. If for any reason I want to use this sambal to cook other things then I will add other ingredients as and when.

Take this recipe as a guide and make your own as sometimes our onions has a stronger taste or our chillies is hotter. I remember one time I bought some chilli powder that were so hot! I of course had to add more sugar. I will give you tips to adjust.

Oh yes when using the dried chillies, snip off the heads a bit and empty out as much of the seeds as you can. When I was young grandma use to say don’t let the males eat chilli seeds or they can’t pee – kekekekekeke Funny things I remember from young but now that I am all grown up I know that it is the spicy hot food that can increase bladder pain and inflammation in some people thus making it hard to pee for them. BUT there is some truth in so called ‘old wives’ tales after all!