Sambal Tumis Udang Petai (Prawn Chilies with Petai)

I guess for Malays this is just a typical cuisine. But since I have told my Korean friend about my cooking blog, this is an opportunity to expose her to Malay cuisines.

Well, wonder how I get petai here in Germany? Thanks to Asia Shop, I get to buy all the exotic foods (exotic for me because they are imported). From petai, daun kesum, lemongrass, kafir leaves are all available in this shop. Cause other Asian like Thais, Vietnamese also use these ingredients in their cooking, these items are always available.

Typical sambal tumis uses blended dried chilies but my Malaysian dried chilies stock has long gone. There is Thai dried chilies sold in the Asia Shop but it is of cili api. More than 3 chilies, it is already so spicy so it is not possible to make sambal tumis as we want the sambal tumis to have this red-colour look but but not that spicy.

A friend had introduced this sambal olek (also available in Asia Shop) to substitute blended dried chilies. A very user-friendly ingredient, I would say....hehehe, save me from dealing with boiling and blending the dried chilies.

Then the shrimp powder (belacan) of course plays important role for the authentic sambal tumis. The one I used is from Malaysia. You can still buy it (paste in the bottle) from Asia Shop but it is of Thailand make. Not really our Malaysian taste...

Ok, let's the ingredient based on my own recipe:

Ingredients:

1. 500 gram of shrimp (the bigger the better)

2. 2 spoons of sambal oelek or dried chilies paste (if you like it spicier, add more)

3. Petai (as much as you want)

3. 2 onion - 1 cut into small cubes (shallots are better, but here in Germany shallots are expensive, so I used onion) and 1 cut in round slices.

4. 3 garlic cloves (cut into small pieces)

5. Shrimp powder ( 1 spoon)

6. Tamarind juice

7. Sugar and salt to taste

8. Some cooking oil

Method:

1. Heat up cooking oil

2. Fry the onion (small cubes) and garlic until yellow

3. Add the chilies. Leave it to cook properly. Stir once a while.

4. Add shrimp powder, sugar, salt and tamarind juice.

5. Add shrimp and petai. Leave it to cook.

6. Add round sliced onion. Leave it for a while.

Ready to serve!