CHAPTER 4.2: Recipes, Ingredients and Processes

We've mentioned making the kuah kacang (peanut sauce) previously and here are the details on how to make it. The portion we have here is for approximately 200 people, since dishes like this are commonly cooked for a large crowd of people and can be done in one go, so scale down the portion to suit your preferences.

Ingredients:

3 kg           roasted peanuts

1 kg           bawang merah (red onions)

15 sticks    serai (lemongrass)

1" piece     lengkuas (galangal)

1.5 kg        dried chilies

300 g         dried shrimp

1 pack       belacan (shrimp paste)

3 tbsp        salt

300 g         granulated sugar

1 piece      gula melaka (palm sugar)

                 cooking oil
                 water

Directions:
1. Place the dried chilies in a pot and add enough water to cover the chilies. Blanch the chilies until they soften, strain and put aside to cool. 

Chop and blend the onions, serai and lengkuas

2. Roughly chop the onions, serai and lengkuas and blend them together, adding a cup of water to the mix (or enough to ease the blending, don't worry about adding too much, the water helps soften and cook the peanuts later). Pour the mixture into a big bowl (we reused the basin) and leave aside.

Roast and blend the belacan with the dried shrimps

3. Roast the belacan either in a dry pan over medium heat or in an oven until the surface turns into a slightly darker brown. Break up the belacan into smaller bits and blend with the dried shrimp, adding water accordingly. Put the shrimp mixture aside.

4. Put a dry pot over medium heat or use an oven and roast the peanuts, as roasted as you like,  then remove and leave to cool.

Blend blanched chilies with oil and water

5. Now back to the blanched chilies. Blend the soften chilies with some water and oil (about half the amount of chilies) to break down the seed. Once done, add to the big basin of blended ingredients.

Crushed peanuts

6. Put the cooled roasted peanut into a blender and crush the peanuts. 

Heat oil and stir in blended chili and shrimp mixture

7. In a big pot, add approximately a cup of cooking oil and heat over medium heat, then add in all the blended ingredients except for the crushed peanuts. Stir and allow it to simmer for 10 minutes.

Stir in the blended peanuts and mix well

8. Add in the crushed peanuts, mix well until it boils, add two basins of water (approx. 20 cups of water) to the mixture and leave it on medium low heat. Come back to stir the mixture every half and hour or so.

Chop and add the gula melaka, salt and sugar

9. While the peanut mixture is cooking, chop the gula melaka into smaller bits. Add the gula melaka, salt and sugar to the pot after an hour.

Et voila! Initial orange sauce slowly cooked into a brown delicious sauce

10. Leave it to cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally. The sauce should be done when all the water added earlier in the blending process has more or less evaporated, leaving you with a sauce of thicker consistency and a darker colour.  

You now have a pot of staple traditional dish. Enjoy!