Sambal Belacan

Every household has their secret and style of making sambal belacan. But the core ingredients are always the same. A sambal belacan normally consists of red chili and belacan then pounded with mortar and pestle into a delicious spicy paste. Optional ingredients would normally include lime/calamansi juice, anchovies, tamarind juice and salt.

In my household, a typical sambal belacan would consist of chili, belacan and calamansi juice. The recipe was taught by my mother when I was about 12 years old. Since then, I took over the job from her and was coined the official sambal belacan maker in our family. The interesting part of a sambal belacan is that, it never has the exact measurement, or at least in our household. I would use my instinct of agak-agak how much the chili and belacan should be. And it always turned out surprisingly well.

Sambal belacan is best eaten with raw, fresh vegetables or ulam and best served with piping hot rice. Like what we had the other day. We managed to get our hand on fresh ulam during our grocery shopping trip and it would be such a waste not to eat it with sambal belacan. And it was surprising because a simple dish such as that able to make us to eat like nobody's business!

via http://www.supercook.org/

Writing this entry suddenly makes me craving for some good 'ol sambal belacan at our regular lunch joint!