: : Sambal Belachan : :
Who can ever forget the aroma of sambal belachan? You either love it or hate it although most Asians just loooooooooovvvvvveeeeeee the taste and the smell will trigger your tastebuds instantaneously. If you hate it, you’ll probably start experiencing headaches and feeling like you’re suffocating.
Granny was making some for the Pipeman to have lunch with. She also had some kacang botol @ four angled beans as well so that was our lunch.
First of all, find some belachan. Which one is the best? Have absolutely no idea. It’s a trial and error thing. The belachan found in Sarawak is totally different from the ones found in West Malaysia and Indonesia. I do not know what’s in those ones but if someone knows, please do drop me a line in the Comments section. Thanks. The main ingredients for belachan are the baby shrimps/prawns that is used to make cincaluk. (Juveniles, as Carol puts them.) The shrimps are salted in a wooden container with sea salt under a hot hot sun under the moisture within the paste is gone. Then, the mixture is pounded together. Then dried under the sun again to remove all the moisture. It is later packed in a square container and later cut into pieces. Sometimes it is squarish, other times it’s round. You can freeze them in the fridge for ages and it will not go back. I recommend putting them into some sort of air-tight container preferably glass else your whole fridge is going to stink.
Of course, one needs to have some chillis. What is sambal belachan without some hot hot chillis? She also prepared from dried prawns. You can also add in some chilli padi @ bird chillis/Thai chillis but go easy on them. They will flame your tongue completely. Another alternative is to use dried chillis but those are seriously tough to pound away.
Granny put all the belachan pieces and cut chillis into the mortar to be pounded using the pestle. She added in the chilli seeds as well as they will add in the spicy taste into the sambal.
We put the mortar onto the floor so that the sink doesn’t get deformed. The pounding must be done slowly else bits and pieces of the chilli and belachan will start flying everywhere. Continue pounding until all the chilli seeds have been blended in with the chilli and the belachan.
Next, we added in the dried prawns and pounded away. You can substitute the dried prawns with freshly cooked prawns.
This is how it look like finally. Offered to help Granny to pound it until the paste became very smooth but she said never mind. So okay. We squeezed one lemon into this paste and mixed it evenly.
And, this is how it finally looked like. Granny put some into a small bottle to be put away into the freezer to keep for my Mum’s vist in December.
My Dad likes to use a blender because it’s faster but the chilli seeds does not get pounded away. There is a rumour going around that chilli seeds can cause appendicitis but I’m not sure about that. Granny believes it so she will always use the pestle and mortar.
That’s it for today. Nite nite!!