Sambal udang, or sambal prawns, is a characteristically Malay dish of prawns cooked with sambal belacan and chilli rempah. It tastes quite similar to Ayam Masak Merah, a dish of chicken that is cooked in a similar sambal sauce, except that there isn’t any tomato sauce in this prawn recipe.
My mum makes this dish once in a while too, but her sauce is a lot sweeter and thinner than mine, which is perfect for eating with rice. As I am making this for the first time (I rarely cook any prawn dishes!), I have decided to make the sauce a lot thicker (and spicier!!!), just to see how it tastes like first.
Warning: it is really really spicy.
In any case, I am looking forward to a great Hari Raya Puasa break that is coming up at the end of July. Selamat Hari Raya Puasa in advance to all my Muslim friends too!
Ingredients:
- Fresh red chillies: 4, deseeded
- Dried red chillies: 50g, soaked in hot water for 15 min, drained
- Yellow onion: 2, peeled & quartered
- Shallot: 100g, peeled
- Roasted shrimp paste belacan: 2 tsp
- Oil: 4 tbsp
- Lemongrass: 3 stalks, slightly crushed
- Tamarind paste: 80g tamarind + 250ml water, sieved, pulp discarded
- Salt: 2 tsp
- Sugar: 4 tbsp
- Prawn: 500g, deshelled with tail intact, deveined
- Fried fishball: 500g
- Milk: 200ml
Method:
- Blend chillies, onions, shallots & belacan together.
- Heat oil in wok. Fry paste with lemongrass on low heat for 30 min.
- Add tamarind paste, salt & sugar. Leave to boil.
- Stir in prawns. Simmer for 3 mins.
- Add fishballs and milk. Simmer for another 2 min.
- Serve hot with rice.
Tricks:
- I actually doubled the amount of blended chilli paste in the original recipe so that I could scoop out half the amount into a bottle for storage after the cooking. This can be stored in the freezer to be used as a similar paste for cooking dishes in the future, or simply stored in the fridge if you intend to have spicy sambal chilli as a condiment for your next meal.
- I added in fishballs to make this dish a more substantial one. The sambal paste also goes well with other ingredients such as stingrays, eggs, squids and even chicken.
Disclaimers:
- This recipe was kindly adapted from ‘Seasaltwithfood‘.
- Refer to my ‘Ayam Masak Merah‘ recipe for another version of Malay rempah used for cooking.
- I repeat, the combination of this rempah makes the dish really really spicy. Watch out!
Serving:
8 – 10 persons as a side dish
Fiery rating:
👿 👿 👿 👿 👿
This is goddamn baller amazing.
It’s amazingly spicy lol…