Crushed chiles (sambal ulek)

6 Servings

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
Stephen Ceideburg
2¼ pounds Red chillis
3 teaspoons Salt

Directions

The ulek-ulek is the implement you use to crush candlenuts, chillis, etcetera in a cobek. Sambal Ulek is made of chillis that have been crushed this way. This is a very basic sambal, which is useful to keep in quantity, so that you can use it for quite a lot of recipes which specify red chillis as one of the ingredients. As this sambal can be stored for at least 2 weeks in the refrigerator, it is worth while making quite a lot of it. But to crush the chillis in a cobek with the ulek-ulek is very laborious. A food processor is a great help here.

Seed and chop the red chillis roughly, then put all these into a saucepan and half-fill the saucepan with boiling water. Boil the chillis for 8 minutes. Drain, and put them into the food processor, using the blade for mincing meat. Let the machine run for a minute or so. For Sambal Ulek you don't want the chilli paste to be too smooth.

Put this sambal into a jar, stir in the salt, cover the jar tightly and keep in the refrigerator.

From "Indonesian Food and Cookery", Sri Owen, Prospect Books, London, 1986." ISBN 0-907325-29-7.

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