Sweet or Spicy? Two Yummy Sambal Chillies

My son is becoming five soon... I'm hoping to teach him to eat a little chilli so that I can slowly introduce a variety of Singaporean traditional food. I'm hoping too that he can learn the roots of Singaporean culture through food. 

Unlike my son, my husband eat chillies like nobody business... LOL! I reckon this is the way we were brought up, training us to be extremely chilli-tolerant. For us, I'm cooking two different sambal chillies in this post. One is the sweet kind with gula melaka (palm sugar). Another is the spicy kind with lots of chillies and coconut milk. Both are quite different in taste and level of its spiciness but equally delicious and fragrant when they are served with crispy fried anchovies, nasi lemak (coconut rice) or even plain rice!

I thought that my son would at least try a little of the sweet sambal chilli. Not surprising at all, he didn't like anything even the crispy anchovies. I guess that I have to keep trying...

Two Sambal Chillies... Both are equally yummy!

Ingredients to make the sweet sambal

Ingredients to make the spicy sambal

Frying the dried anchovies

Spicy vs sweet

Combine sambal with crispy anchovies when ready to serve...

Here are the recipes (with my notes and modification in blue).

Easy Sweet Sambal with Gula Melaka

from Sonia, Nasi Lemak Lover

15g dried chili (trim and cut, boil in hot water and drained)
2 fresh red chilies, de-seeded
3 large onions
a small knob of belacan (shrimp paste), pre-toasted
50g Gula Melaka (palm sugar)
1 piece tamarind peel (asam keping)
(replaced with 1 tbsp tamarind puree)
1 cup cooking oil
(reduced to 1/4 cup of canola oil) 
1/2 cup water
(I didn't add this)
salt to taste

Blend dried chilies, fresh red chillies, onions and belacan (with little water - I didn't add this) till fine paste.

Add in blended chilli paste into remaining oil, sauté till aroma.

Add in gula Melaka, tamarind peel (puree) and salt, continue to sauté over low flame for 30 mins. Cook till half way, paste will become thick, add in water and continue cook (I didn't do that).

Note: I fried mine for about 30 min until the sauce darken in colour and has nice aromatic fragrance and reckon that I didn't have to add water to cook further.

Sambal Anchovies

from the book, The best of Singapore Recipes: Nonya Specialties by Mrs Leong Yee Soo

115g dried chillies, washed, soaked with warm water and de-seeded
my addition: 115g fresh red chillies, about 9, washed and de-seeded

1 clove garlic, peeled

115g shallots or onions, peeled (I used shallots)

55g shrimp paste (belacan), pre-toasted

170g coconut, grated

225 ml (1 cup) water

(replaced both coconut and water with 250ml coconut milk)

170 ml (3/4 cup) cooking oil

(I used 1/4 cup of canola oil)

4 tbsp sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1 tbsp MSG (I didn't add that)

4 tbsp tamarind pulp (asam) (mixed with water, squeezed and strained)
(replaced with 4 tbsp of ready-to-use tarmarind puree)

Combined chilies with garlic, shallots and shrimp paste and pound to a fine paste.

Combine coconut with the water. Using a piece of muslin, squeeze coconut to extract no. 2 coconut milk. Set aside. (I use can coconut milk instead. I prefer the full fat kind for its maximum flavours.) 

Add cooking oil to a heated wok. When oil is hot, fry chili paste and one-third of the milk over moderate heat until fragrant and oil bubbles through.

Stir in seasoning ingredients and the remaining coconut milk. Lower heat and simmer for 2 mins. Remove to a bowl to cool.

I didn't follow the steps of the book exactly and this is what I did:

Instead of pounding the ingredients in fine paste, I have mixed all ingredients in a processor and process them into fine paste. The mixture were then fried for 30 mins with 1/4 cup of oil until fragrant.

Tips from the book:

• Divide into 4 portions, pack in plastic bags and freeze for future use.
• Each portion can be mixed with crispy anchovies and served as a side dish for Nasi Lemak. 

To fry anchovies to crisp:

Remove heads of medium-sized anchovies. Wash and drain the anchovies.

Heat cooking oil for deep-frying until very hot. Add the anchovies and fry over moderate heat until crisp and light brown. Lower heat at the end of cooking time to prevent it from turning too dark.

Remove anchovies to cool slightly on a paper towel and store in a container.

Thaw a portion of the sambal, heat through in a frying pan. Combine sambal with crispy anchovies when ready to serve.

Happy Cooking
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