Sambal Hae Bee / Sambal Dried Prawns

 

Sambal Hae Bee or Sambal Udang Kering is one of the most delicious condiment as it is made from tasty dried prawns and the aromatic spices. It is sweet, salty, mildly sour and very fragrant. It is best eaten with white rice. However, I like to eat it with bread - sandwich it with cucumber. Sambal Hae Bee can also be used as fillings for bread and pulut panggang.

 Ingredients:

• 125 g dried prawns
• 10 g dried chilies
• 100 g fresh red chilies
• 125 g shallots
• 40 g garlic
• 5 g fresh turmeric
• 50 g lemongrass
• 5 pieces of kaffir lime leaves
• 5 g belacan
• 30 g tamarind juice
• 100 g cooking oil
• 35 g brown sugar
• 4 g salt

Method:

• Wash, soak and pound the dried prawns. (It is not advisable to use the blender as the dried prawns would be too fine. It is best to use the mortar and pestle to pound the dried prawns so that they are slightly coarse.)

• Wash and soak the dried chilies. Cut them into small pieces when they have softened.

• Wash and cut the fresh red chilies into small pieces

• Peel and wash the shallots. Cut them up coarsely.

• Peel and wash the garlic. Cut them up coarsely.

• Remove the skin of the turmeric.

• Wash and slice the white part of the lemongrass finely.

• Wash the kaffir lime leaves. Remove the midrib and petiole. Slice the leaves finely.

• Take a knob of tamarind, add water and extract 30 g of tamarind juice.

• Toast the belacan.

• Weigh out the brown sugar and salt (may add or reduce them - to taste).

• Add dried chilies, fresh red chilies, shallots, garlic, turmeric, lemongrass and belacan into the container of the blend. Blend till they are fine.

• Heat up the wok with cooking oil.

• Once the oil is hot, add the blended ingredients to the oil.

• Saute till they are aromatic.

• Add the pounded dried prawns and continue to fry them for another 7-8 minutes.

• Add the finely cut kaffir lime leaves.

• Add the tamarind juice, sugar and salt. Taste test and add more tamarind juice, sugar or salt according to your taste.

• Stir for another 5 minutes or so and your sambal hae bee is ready.

Homemade Chocolate Sauce

Chocolate sauce is a sweet delicious condiment which has a lot of uses. It can be used as a topping for your ice cream, muffins and cakes or as a spread for your bread. It can also be used in making your chocolate milk shake and ice cream. It is very easy to make and costs very much less when made at home. And most of the time, the ingredients to make it are available at home. Although the recipe for making it is provided here, you can vary the quantity of each ingredient to suit your taste - either less bitter or sweeter. You can also vary the consistency of your chocolate sauce; if it is too runny, you may heat it a bit longer to thicken it. I usually make it when I have a lot of whipping or heavy cream remaining after my baking.

Ingredients:

• 80 g butter
• 100 g whipping cream
• 65 g brown sugar
• 15 g cocoa powder
• 5 g instant coffee

Method:

• Weigh all ingredients into a heat proof bowl.

• Put the bowl over a pot of boiling water (Bain-marie) without the bottom touching the boiling water.

• Stir the ingredients using a spatula.

• When the sugar, cocoa powder and coffee have dissolved and the sauce is shiny, remove it from the heat.

• The sauce will thicken as it cools down.

• After it has completely cooled down, transfer it to a glass bottle and keep it in the fridge if you are using it as a spread for your bread.

• However, if you are using it as a ganache, it is better to use it when it is still warm and runny.

Chicken Floss

   

 

 

Chicken Floss (or Kei Bak Hu in Hokkien) is a good accompaniment for white porridge and even rice. It can also be eaten on its own or spread on bread for breakfast or tea time. It is very expensive if we were to buy from those shops selling bak kwa and meat floss. As it is so easy to make, why not make it ourselves. 

Ingredients:

• 400 g chicken breast (without skin and bones)
• 4 slices of ginger
• 3 cloves of garlic (whole)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1 tbsp cooking oil
• Water, enough to cover the chicken breast

Method:

• Boil the chicken breast in a pan with enough water to cover it.

• Add ginger slices, garlic cloves and salt to the pan.

• Cover the pan and boil till the chicken meat is soft. (If you prefer long strands of chicken floss then do not over boil the meat.)

• Remove and discard the ginger and garlic.

• Remove excess chicken broth. (Do not discard. You may use the broth to cook porridge.)

• Add sugar and light soy sauce to the chicken.

• Stir the chicken over very low fire. As you stir break down the chicken into strands by pressing the chicken against the base of the pan.

• Stir until dry.

• Heat up kuali with 1 tbsp cooking oil.

• Transfer chicken to kuali and keep on stirring the floss under very low heat (to prevent burning) till it is very dry and golden brown. Fry longer if you want it to be more crunchy.

• Once done, spread it out on a metal plate to cool down.

• Transfer it to a glass bottle for keeping.

Sambal

I

Our family loves spicy food, however, the degree of spiciness varies from person to person. I love my food to be as spicy as possible. In order to be able to cook my dishes easily, I will

usually grind a lot of chilli at one go and freeze them in containers.

I have the following ingredients to make my chilli sambal:

• fresh red chilli - 1 kg
• dried chilli - 1/2 kg
• bird's eye chilli (chilli padi) (optional) - 200 g
• onions - 2 big ones
• garlic - 1 bulb
• shrimp paste - 1 1/2 inch

The directions:

• Remove the stems of the red chilli. Wash and dry them. Then, cut them into smaller pieces. Some people may not like the seeds and would like to remove them. However, I do not remove them.
• Remove the stems of the dried chilli. Wash and soak them overnight or soak them for at least 4 hours with hot water. When they have softened, cut them into smaller pieces. You may or may not remove the seeds.
• The bird's eye chilli are for those who want a very spicy sambal. You may leave them out if you wish. if you are including them, then remove the stems and wash them.
• Remove the skin of the onions and slice them.
• Remove the skin of the garlic.
• Toast the shrimp paste. You don't have to if you don't want to.

• Put all the ingredients into the grinder.
• How fine you want your sambal to be depends on you.
• Once all the ingredients have been ground, put them into a few containers for easier use.
• Freeze them.

Note: If you are making sambal for nasi lemak, the amount of fresh chilli and dried chilli should be reversed i.e. more of dried chilli and less of the fresh ones. Then add 1 piece of galangal (about 1 inch) to be ground together.