Recipe: make your own sambal, 3 ways

Sambal: a hot sauce or paste, made up of a variety of chilli peppers, garlic, ginger, fish sauce and a host of other ingredients. Sambal is a borrowed word from Indonesia, which is where I was inspired to come up with these recipes.

Here are three different recipes you can try at home, for various heat tolerances. From mild to spicy, each of these can be used for pretty much any meal:

• top on pizza, pasta, tacos

• add to soups and stews

• marinate meat/tofu

• eat by the spoonful (really)

I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. 

MILD + TEXTURAL

• 3 jalapenos, thinly sliced

• 1 onion, thinly sliced

• 4 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced

• 1/2 teaspoon of pink Himalayan salt

• 1/4 cup of sunflower oil

The flavour for this comes from the charring of the onions and jalapenos.  Add them into a pan with the sunflower oil and salt and sautee them on medium high heat for 20-30 minutes and allow them to get charred and brown. Add the garlic toward the end as you don't want it to burn and get bitter. Store this in an airtight container. You may add more oil to create a chilli oil as well, and store in your fridge up to a few weeks.

SWEET + RAW

• handful of green chillies

• small handful of Vietnamese mint & 1 bunch scallions

• 4 cloves of garlic

• large knob of ginger

• juice of 1 lime

• 2 tablespoons of Manuka honey

• splash of water, depending on your blender

This doesn't require any cooking, it's bright, fresh, high acid and slightly sweet. Blend all ingredients in a high powered blender or magic bullet. Don't over blend as you want it to still have some texture. Store in an air tight container in your fridge for up to a few weeks; this would make a fantastic marinade!

HOT + COOKED

• handful of red chillies (or an entire package, depending on your tolerance!)

• 1 knob of galangal

• 4 cloves of garlic

• splash of fish sauce

• 3/4 of 1 fresh beef steak tomato

Blend all ingredients in a blender, but remember to keep some of the texture. Add to a pan on medium to high heat, and let it simmer until it reduces into a paste like texture, about 10-15 minutes. Add to an airtight container and store in your fridge for up to a few weeks.

WINE PAIRINGS

An always safe bet is to stick with off dry to sweet aromatic whites: Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Muscat. The sugar will coat your tongue and help cleanse your palate of the spice; while the aromatics in the wine will pair with the aromatics in the dish. 

Another option to try, if you're not into white wines, are full bodied red wines with a slight chill on them. I once had a Zinfandel with Thai food and I was shocked at how well it worked. Other options that would work like this would be a Barossa Shiraz or Negro Amaro from Puglia. 

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