Sambal Udang Kering–Dry Shrimps Spiced Condiments (辣椒虾米松）

INTRODUCTION

My late parents were born in China and settled in Sarawak.. Therefore, none of them qualified to be a Peranakan. In fact, my late mum even have a difficulty to communicate in simple Malay as there are very few Malay households in our area of residence.

However, I have prepared these sambal udang kering or dry shrimps condiment since I was very young. I remembered that I have helped my mother pounding the dry shrimps using pastel and mortar. Lemon grass, shallots and chilli are the three main ingredients..

We used to eat these with some white porridges or with raw cucumber. At times, dry shrimps was not used, instead , deep fried lard cubes was used and it yield the same flavour without the fishiness.

For these sambal udang kering, I did not refer to any recipe. It is the estimated measurement on my head but properly weighing done for the sake of issuing this recipe. It is a totally flexible recipe, a bit more or less will not rendered your sambal udang kering not eatable… And you can very easily tailor to your taste buds.

However, what I am sharing is not what my late parents used to do. Steps were simplified and I have used very minimum amount of cooking oil in the recipe since most families already have non stick pans and food processor in their house. Taste wise will not be compromised much at all.

I purposely prepared these sambal udang kering in a rather dry manner for the purpose of preparing my Chinese New Year cookies – Sambal udang kering rolls. It will be issued in the next post.

WHAT IS REQUIRED

250 grams of dried shrimps- soaked until soft
2 sticks of lemon grass
5 shallots
15 dried chillis – soaked and drained
1-2 tablespoons of peanut oil (or other cooking oil)
1 cm cube of belachan (shrimp paste) or 1 tablespoon of belachan powder (optional)
Sugar to taste

STEPS OF PREPARATION

Soak the dry shrimps until soft. Drain and set aside. Put the shallots, chilli and lemon grass., dry shrimps, belachan or belachan powder and blend as fine as possible.

Add the sugar and oil, blend until the overall mixture is fine.. Transfer the blended mixture to a non stick pan. Stir fry under “MEDIUM “ heat until the mixture dries up and the mixture become aromatic. Constant stirring is required. It took me about 15 minutes to stir fry until my desired texture which is dry but not floury.

CONCLUSION

This condiment was prepared with the intention of baking some mini popiah sambal udang rolls to be served during Chinese New Year. Do stay tune for the next post on this mini spring rolls.

For more Chinese New Year related cookies, snack and steamed cake recipes, you can have a copy of “Easy Chinese New Year Recipes – A step by step guide” that was packed with 30 recipes, 60 pages at a reasonable convenience fee of USD3.50. The recipes covered from auspicious radish cake to nian gao to traditional kuih bangkit to trendy London almond cookies. You can purchase by clicking the link above. You can either pay using Pay Pal or Credit card account. Please ensure that you have an PDF reader like Acrobat or iBooks in your mobile phone if you intended to read it in your ipad or mobile phone.

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