Sambal Belacan Chili Paste (Dried shrimp Chili Paste)
By: yin
Published: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - 3:24am

Ingredients




Dried chili( if you like it extra spicy add more chili), soak and remove the stump
6-8 stalks of lemongrass, use only the white part and do away the green stalks
Shallot, peeled
Belacan, cut pieces
Turmeric powder (optional) – to add coloring to the chili paste
cooking oil

Preparation

1 METHOD: 2 1.	Soak dried chili well. You can add bird’s eye chilies to increase the spiciness. 3 2.	Add belacan bit by bit. The degree of saltiness varies with different brands of belacan, so it is prudent to mix the belacan in little by little, tasting as you go along. 4 3.	Blend the above ingredients with cooking oil until fine, the consistency should be as shown in the photo below and not lumpy. 5 4.	Heat wok and pour grind chili paste, add in one to two table spoon turmeric powder and keep frying in low heat until the color changed to deep dark red and oil separated from the paste. 6 5.	Remove from heat, let it cool completely before storing in air tight container 7 Tips: 8 You may keep the sambal belacan paste in an air tight container in the fridge to last for at least 2 weeks.

About

For Malaysian, Indonesian and Singaporean spicy food lover, sambal is one of the common spices easily found in their pantry. Due to the modern lifestyle many people opt to buy pre-packed readymade spices.  However considering the side effects of food preservatives, why not spend a little effort to make our own healthy Sambal Belacan paste?