It was a hard job making the sambal chilli !! And it’s not the difficulty of cooking it or whatsoever, it’s all the equipment that I needed for that decided to quit on me just for that moment !!! My initial idea was just to make a bit for a particular dish, but as I have alot of the ingredients on hand, I might as well use them all. Hence, I decided I shall puree all together for a huge pot of sambal then. I can always chill or freeze them for later use, isn’t it ? So I needed my bigger capacity food processor to work for me. But else, it suddenly decides to protest against me just when I needed it most. I thought it was spoilt since I haven’t been using it for a real long time, like years ? And it was after I have placed everything into the food processor container that I realised it isn’t working !! I literally had to empty out everything and transfer the ingredients into the smaller blender. But the small equipment isn’t as powerful as the huge one and also as I was overly ambitious and wanna puree the most at one go, without realising the capacity of this small fella, the plastic holder that supports the blender blades actually broke !!! Sighhhhh……I almost want to cry on seeing that !!
Of course without the plastic holder, the blender blades can still work if you try to position it correctly for each blend but there will be a hole at the blender container already and some of the puree will leak out whenever I blend something. At that point in time, I really had no choice but just to proceed with the rest of the ingredients slowly and in very small portions each time. And I finally finished blending all the sambal after much “sweat” and “exasperation” !! Really wanna cried out thereafter !! LOL.
Ok, it’s over. So I managed to get my sambal pureed and cooked successfully !! So that was a good consolation and ending to a bad start. And boy, I do love my sambal sauce much much because it hinges a strong pungent of lemongrass which I really liked and it isn’t as sweet as some of those sold on the shelves.
I prepared some sambal sotong (squid) alongside with it and it was so good that I regret not having more squids to go along. I finished up the entire plate in less than 10 minutes !!
So sharing with you my home-made sambal sauce that bores a good lemongrass fragrance. If you like lemongrass as much as I do, you would love this sambal sauce too !
Enjoy !
Also, if you need fresh and really huge sotongs (squids) to enjoy this Sambal Sotong, be sure to grab some from PurelyFresh today !! It was quite a steal for $10.20 where you get 3 huge pieces of squids that weigh 500g in all. Even if you were to buy the same from the market, they would probably cost around the same too ! What’s more, you get these fresh groceries delivered right to your doorstep at 100% convenience ! So go go go, start shopping and cooking right away !
- 2 pcs of sotongs (squids), cut into rings
- 1 tbsp cooking oil
- 1 tbsp minced garlic
- 1 small red onion, sliced
- For the Sambal Sauce:
- 7 pcs chilies, chopped
- 5 stalks lemongrass (use the bottom part only, chopped)
- 350g shallots, chopped
- 3 tbsp assam tamarind paste (to dissolve in 5 tbsp of hot water)
- 40g belachan (toasted at 160 degrees for 8 mins)
- 6 tbsp minced garlic
- 5 thick slices of ginger
- 125ml cooking oil
- 60g light brown sugar
- 40g dried chillies
- dash of salt
- some water (if necessary)
- Combine all the sambal sauce ingredients in a food processor and blend till paste-alike. You can add some water if necessary to allow the machine to blend the ingredients thoroughly.
- Heat up the cooking in a wok or pan. Add the sambal paste and fried cooked till the oil separates away. Remove from flame and set aside.
- Heat up 1 tbsp of cooking oil in a frying pan and add the minced garlic and red onion. Stir till garlic is fragrant and onion becomes soft.
- Add the sotongs(squids) and stir briefly. Add 3 tbsp of sambal sauce from the above step. Stir the sambal sauce with the sotongs(squids) till well combined and the squids are cooked. Dish and serve hot.
