Malaysian food heritage

          I have done my Malaysian food interview which is for my Malaysian Food Heritage assignment purpose. The Malaysian food that I had to interview is Sambal Belacan which mean shrimp paste in Bahasa Malaysia. Belacan is the basis of a well-loved Malay condiment, it is almost always present in any typical Malay meal. Besides, it is a food that every type of religion also fall in love to because it can match with any kind of food such as Chinese cuisine Chow Kuey Teow or Indian Roti Canai. Hence, it is very normal that Malaysian know how to make Sambal Belacan so I just interview my neighbour and she is a Malay aunty and I call her Aunty Eileen.

     

          I go to Aunty Eileen house at 15 November2014 with the ingredients that she told me that I need to prepare. The ingredients that I had prepare are one small piece of belacan, one pack of bird’s eye chili, 6 pieces of bell pepper, one onion, salt, sugar, six green oranges and fish sauce.

             By prepare this all ingredients, it is very easy because all of the ingredients can really easily found in market or we can get it directly in our house. Besides that, I have calculated the money that I have used for prepare these ingredients and all of them are not more than 25 ringgit Malaysia. This also tell us that why Malaysian like Sambal Belacan, definitely because it is cheap and delicious.

       The first step, chopped bell pepper to blending size, and of course throw seeds away. Second step, remove stem from bird’s eye chili. After that, cut green oranges into halves, squeezed juice, set aside and shred green oranges skin to smaller bits.

            Finally, we can start to toast the belacan in a dry pan at fairly high heat, breaking it up until it forms a dry crumbly powder and at this time we can also put in the onion. This is quite an ‘aromatic’ operation and, though I like the smell. 

              The last step is to put everything into blender and add little bit of water together with the green oranges juice that was set aside because too much water will affect the taste of sambal belacan. Next step, blend all the ingredients in blender until it becomes as smooth a paste as possible. 

              You think it was done? No! We heat a suitable pan over a high flame and add the paste. Once it begins to steam and bubble vigorously, we stir constantly as it cooks to keep it from sticking to the bottom of the pan and burning. As the moisture cooks out, we will see that the mass begins to pull away from the sides and bottom of the pot as you stir. Once the oil starts to separate out, the cooking is done. Tang Dang!  Allow to cool and then transfer to a suitable jar or other receptacle for storage. 

             It was done by quicky, easy and delicious! It had only take us not more than 15 minutes to finish this delicious Malaysia food.

             Before I go to Aunty Eileen house for doing Sambal Belacan, I have online search some information about how to make sambal belacan and after I done it with Aunty Eileen in real life, I found that are something different compare with online recipe.  By comparing the online recipe and actual recipe, I found some different between them but also some similarities. One of the similarities are the ingredients.

online recipe

            There is almost same about the ingredients to make sambal belacan. Besides that, online recipe have also mention that sambal belacan is a dish that easy to make and the actual experience to make sambal belacan is really pretty easy. Talk about the different between online recipe and actual recipe, I would like to say the different is the time constraint. Online recipe state that prepare and cook sambal belacan need to use one hour and the actual recipe is not more than 30 minutes and this is also one of the reason I say homemade sambal belacan is pretty easy.

             In conclusion, after the interview about sambal belacan with my neighbour Aunty Eileen, I found that sambal belacan is so easy to make and the cost is really quite low. By compare the cost of making sambal belacan between homemade and buy outside store, homemade sambal belacan is quite cheaper than buy from supermarket. I have decided to make my own healthy and delicious sambal belacan in the future again rather than buy in from supermarket because I can control the quantity of put how many sugar and salt or other ingredients to make it.