My hubby's favourite version of sambal

Sambal, as I know it, has a few main components:

1. Shallots
2. Garlic
3. Dried chillies (Fresh ones don't sound and taste right to me)
4. Tamarind paste
5. Optional: soy sauce or sugar (strictly for beautiful caramel colour)

Therefore my version of sambal is a bit on the hot and sour side. And this does not fit into my hubby's mindset of sambal.

Finally I got it right while cooking for iftar yesterday. While my head was reeling from who won the 2nd season of Australia's Next Top Model (What?? And Alex is not the winner?) I accidentally put two heaping tablespoon of sugar into my squid sambal.

To me it's a tad too sweet, but it hit my hubby's spot.

My hubby may be a Malay-Javanese-Chinese-Japanese, but he's a true blue Kelantanese at heart.

Hubby's favourite version of Sambal

Blended ingredients:

1. 5 shallots
2. 2 cloves of garlic
3. 1 large onion
4. 10 dried chillies, previously soaked in hot water for 10 minutes
5. 3 fresh chillies

1 teaspoon tamarind paste

Any kind of meats: squid, chicken, prawn, anchovies, eggs

Salt to taste

2 tablespoon of sugar

Method:

Saute the blended ingredients in the wok until it is almost dry, bubbling and oily (What Malays call 'pecah minyak'). Put any kind of meats into your sambal and stir until almost cooked. Put 1 teaspoon of tamarind paste and 1/2 cup of water into the sambal. Stir until it is thick in consistency. Add salt to taste. Then add the sugar.

(My version calls for 1 teaspoon of sugar)

Salmon with Spinach Sauce

This is what I cooked for iftar last week, and hubby was impressed!

2 pieces of salmon
A dash of salt
A dash of black pepper

One small bunch of spinach
1 tablespoon of butter
Half cube of chicken stock
1 cup of water
1 tablespoon of corn flour diluted in small amount of water
1/2 cup plain yogurt


For the salmon:

Sprinkle a dash of salt and black pepper on both sides of the salmon. Pan-fry in a skillet with olive oil. Do not flip the salmon until cooked on one side.

For the spinach sauce:

Melt the butter in a pan and add the spinach until blanched. Add chicken stock with 1 cup of water. Simmer to reduce to amount of liquid to half. Then add plain yogurt. Blend the sauce into a food processor, then pour the liquid into a sauce pan and simmer. Add corn flour as a thickener.

Voila!

Actually the real recipe was to use half of a lemon on the salmon, but I forgot :P. So the slight improvisation was to clean the salmon with some tamarind paste so it won't be too fishy.