Ingredients
Pork cut into little strips
2 cloves of garlic
1 chili pepper
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon oyster sause
Green beans (or Chinese long beans if you have them)
Thai basil
Method
In terms of quantities it’s pretty simple: take equal measures of meat and green beans (in terms of volume, not weight) and twice as much thai basil, and then as much chilli and garlic as suits your taste.
This is best served with steamed rice, so if you have a rice cooker put some Jasmine rice in it and kick it off before you start preparing the rest of the meal, that way by the time you’ve chopped your ingredients and thrown them all together in the wok the rice will be done.
Heat the oil in your wok, throw in the chopped garlic and the chillies (chop the chillies into 1 cm pieces – ie not too finely) and heat for 10-20 secs (just to brown the garlic a tad) before adding the meat and about a third of the thai basil. Keep the heat about medium. If it gets too hot you can add a tiny splash of water too cool it down, this also gives some nice sauce. At this point you should also add some fish sauce and some oyster sauce. Go easy on the fish sauce and add about twice as much oyster sauce as fish sauce. Leave it to cook for about one minute, stirring now and then (as you do in a stir fry), then add the green beans and the rest of the thai basil. Cook for another minute or two and it should be done!
You can usually find Thai basil at any Chinese or Thai supermarket, as well as chinese long beans. Do not substitute the Thai basil with European basil as they are completely different in taste!! I tend to use red chillis in this dish just because it gives a nice colour contrast to the green beans.
Ingredients
1500-1800 grams chicken drumsticks with bone
a generous slosh kecap manis (Indonesian sweet soya sauce – don’t use any other kind!)
8 lime leaves
1 stalk lemon grass, cut into 3 and bashed to release flavour
juice of 2 limes
soya oil to fry
vetsin (monosodium glutamate powder – optional)
Spice mixture:
10 red chillies, sliced (or more, if you like)
10 rawit, sliced (bird’s eye chillies)
10 garlic cloves, chopped
1 medium tomato, chopped
1 thin slice belacan/terasi (shrimp paste from Malaysia and Indonesia), cut up small
6 cm. piece kunyit (fresh turmeric root), peeled and chopped
1 soft chicken stock cube, cut up small
Method
Put all the ingredients for the spice mixture in a food processor with a little water and blend until smooth. Heat a little oil (not too much) until VERY hot in a wok. Fry the spice mixture at high heat together with the lime leaves and lemon grass, until fragrant (3-5 minutes), stirring all the time. Reduce the heat, add kecap manis, vetsin if wished, a little water and the chicken pieces (the chicken should be just covered).
Transfer to a pan with a heavy bottom, cover with a lid and allow to cook on a very low heat (just simmering) for about 60 – 90 minutes or until tender.
When done, add the lime juice and stir in well. Serve with pandan rice and your favourite stir-fried vegetables.
No extra salt is required due to the high salt content in the belcan/terasi.
Sambal is a dish common in Indonesia that takes many guises of sauces and dips. The simplest and perhaps most common is sambal ulek, which is just chillies and salt with perhaps a dash of lime pounded together. There are many other kinds of sambal like sambal pecel (with peanut), sambal terasi (with shrimp paste), sambal tumpeng, etc
Ingredients
2 slices belacan/terasi (shrimp paste) about half a centimetre thick
30 red chillies, sliced
20 rawit, sliced (small birds eye chillies)
3-4 shallots, peeled and chopped
5-10 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
Juice of 1 lime
2-3 tsp melted palm sugar (you can also use dark brown sugar if you can’t get palm sugar)
Method
Put the sliced belacan/terasi on aluminium foil and cook in a preheated oven (150 degrees C) for 20 minutes, until dry and crumbly, turning once. Allow to cool.
Process all the ingredients together (including the belacan/terasi) in your food processor until smooth. You can freeze this sambal in small portions. It keeps for months. Delicious on freshly-cooked pandan rice.
Note: Indonesian recipes use a lot of belacan or terasi (also spelt trassie). Most Europeans find it unpleasant to smell, so keep it in an airtight jar at room temperature in your cupboard. It has a strong smell while cooking too, but you will not be able to taste it as such once the dish is ready. It is also quite salty so no extra seasoning is usually required!!
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