feed me classics
Recipe: Sambal bajak
Vanja van der Leeden serves us the most delicious dishes in her latest cookbook INSANE. It also includes sauces and dips, such as sambal bajak, which goes perfectly with her sauerkraut pie with Indonesian minced meat.
door Bo van Ling
How to make sambal bajak:
- Remove the stems from the lomboks and finely chop them.
- Finely chop the onion.
- Grind the peppers, onion and garlic together with the salt in a large mortar and pestle.
- Add the trassi and Javanese sugar and grind it into the mixture. You can also use a hand blender to finely grind the ingredients. Sambal really does taste better when made in a mortar. That’s not superstition; it just does. The onions don’t turn bitter because the juices are pressed out in the right way. The flavours also blend together better. Of course, you do need to have such a large mortar, otherwise it’s a real chore.
- Heat a large frying pan, add the oil and stir-fry the pepper mixture.
- Add the salam leaves.
- Cut the galangal into slices. Bruise the slices by pounding them with the pestle of the mortar – this releases the juices. Add them to the pan.
- Also bruise the lemongrass and add it to the pan. Stir-fry everything over low heat for about 15 minutes. Add a splash of water if it threatens to become too dry.
- Add the tamarind water at the end. Taste and, if necessary, adjust to your liking with more salt, sugar or acidity.
Tip: I usually finish a batch of sambal in a day, but if you have any left over: sterilise a glass jar with boiling water, leave it to air-dry or pat it dry with a clean tea towel, and spoon the sambal into it.
Title: Insane
Author: Vanja van der Leeden
Price: €34.99
Publisher: Nijgh & van Ditmar
