I love prawn sambal. I don’t think I can ever get bored of it. Generally, I LOVE all seafood and sambal, well, it’s hot and spicy, salty, sweet and sour all combined to give the dish its umph! If you like it HOT, this recipe is for you.
Making prawn sambal is easy. You will need:
- 300g prawns, deveined
- 2 onions, sliced into rings
- 2 tomatoes, diced
- tamarind pulp, soaked with warm water to make tamarind paste (abt 3 tbsp)
- salt and sugar to taste
- oil
Blended (A):
- 12 dried chillies, soaked to rehydrate
- 3 shallots
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 inch ginger
- one chunk of belacan (about an inch cube). You can normally get belacan from any oriental store.
In a large pan, heat the oil to medium to high heat and fry the blended ingredients until fragrant and the oil separates. This may take a few minutes. Add in the chopped tomatoes, mix and leave them to cook until soften.
Now, the next step is probably less taken by some. At this point, I add in the onions.
Only when the onions are almost soften do I add in the prawns.
You see, prawns take hardly any time to cook. When the prawns have curled up and turned from translucent to opaque, you know they’re done. We don’t want to over cook ’em!
Add the tamarind juice, salt and sugar to taste, mix throughly. Have a quick taste and adjust if necessary. Our prawn sambal is ready.
Serve with steamed rice.
