FESTIVE RECIPE: TOMATO SAMBAL

Sambal tomat / Tomato sambal

If you only make one dish from this cookbook, let this be the one! Tomato sambal can be used to accompany a thousand dishes from Indonesia to the Mediterranean. Try it with eggs in any shape or size, grilled fat sausages, fish or any meat, roasted eggplant, tofu or tempeh – not to mention stirred into risotto or homemade mayonnaise or basted over barbecued prawns. It keeps for weeks in the refrigerator and will turn the dullest meal into a masterpiece.

• 4 long red chillies, seeded
• 2–3 small chillies
• 3 red shallots
• 6 garlic cloves
• 3 medium tomatoes, roughly chopped
• 1 teaspoon shrimp paste
• 4 candle-nuts
• sea salt
• 80 ml oil
• fried shallots to serve
• lime wedges to serve

Blitz the chilies, shallots, garlic, tomatoes, shrimp paste, candle-nuts and salt to taste in a food processor until the mixture resembles a tomato salsa or chunky tomato soup. Heat the oil in a wok over medium heat. Fry the tomato mixture until it reduces by nearly half and the oil rises to the surface, which will take at least 5 minutes. If the sambal looks dry, add more oil (it’s not worth skimping on oil in this recipe, as it makes the sambal full-bodied and seductive). Taste for salt, adding more if needed. Serve topped with fried shallots and with wedges of lime.