Recipe#25176

Title: Sambal bajak

From: Julie Bertholf 
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 1996 22:37:48 PDT 

Yield: 1 cup
    1/2 lb Red hot chilies (fresh),
           -chopped coarsely
      1 lg Onion
      6    Garlic cloves
      8    Kemiri nuts,
           -chopped fine
      3 T  Peanut oil
    1/2 t  Laos powder
      1 T  Trasi (dried
           -shrimp paste)
      1 t  Salt
      5 T  Tamarind liquid
      2 T  Sugar
  Chop the chilies, onion and garlic in a food processor.  In a small frying
  pan, saute this mixture in oil until well-cooked.  Do not brown.  Add the
  kemiri nuts, laos, trasi and salt.  Stir and mash until it is well=
 blended.
  Add the tamarind liquid and sugar; simmer until the oil separates out.=
 Cool
  and serve cold.
 
  NOTES:
 
  *  Fried chili-pepper sambal relish -- Indonesia is not known to have
  nuclear weapon capability, but visitors to Djakarta often suspect that if
  enough Sambal Bajak is put into an artillery shell it will have the same
  general effect. Indonesian hosts normally warn Westerners that this is "an
  acquired taste."
 
  *  Laos is a form of ginger.  Other names for it are galangal, Java root,
  galingale, or lengkuas.  If you can't find it, use about 1 t of powdered
  ginger mixed with about 1/4 t of powdered cinnamon.  Trasi is shrimp=
 paste;
  it can be left out. Tamarind liquid is made by soaking dried tamarind pulp
  in hot water for 1 hour and then straining. To make about 5 T of tamarind
  liquid, use about 1/4 cup of pulp and about 1/2 cup of hot water.
 
  : Difficulty:  easy if you have the ingredients.
  : Time:  30 minutes.
  : Precision:  approximate measurement OK.