Belachan 101:--
The primary ingredients are fresh red chillies and belachan or trasi (shrimp paste) pounded together in a mortar and pestle. You can use a blender. The ratio should be to every tsp. of roasted belachan, 10 fresh chillies are used.
Belachan is made of fermented shrimp mostly sold in Asian supermarkets that carry Malaysian or Indonesian foods. BTW, belachan has a very pungent smell, but once roasted, the aroma's "improved". A substitute would be finely ground dry shrimp. You can find this bottled, on the Mexican food aisle.
There's no liquid added, so the paste will be thick. Add freshly squeezed lime juice to it, before serving. Sambal is primarily used as a relish or dip.
Then from this "master" sambal, one can add shallots, garlic or onions to it, poundred together. Then saute the mixture with heated peanut oil in the wok and add veges or seafood to make into delicious main dishes. Or do like me, just saute, once the shallots and garlic are cooked, I store it in a container, and refrigerate. Good luck Robyn! Warning, you'd get addicted to it!
Sorry Carol....taking your space here...
OK....placing chair back in the corner!
Selamat Malam Sweet Ones!
