Sambal oelek
One of the simplest of Indonesia's very many sambals and the base for many more. The name comes from ulek — the stone pestle used to grind chillies on a flat stone mortar. There are three ingredients: fresh red chilli, salt and a little acid. No garlic, no sugar — pure, fruity heat. The point is to grind, not blend: a blender chops the skins and the paste turns watery, while a mortar crushes and keeps texture.
Your own work in that: 12 min.
- Preparing the chillies 10 min
- Grinding 10 min
- Jarring 2 min
Step by step
0 / 8 donePut on gloves
Before handling a quarter kilo of chillies, put on gloves. Capsaicin gets into the skin and burns for hours, and an accidental touch to the eye is genuinely painful. Soap does not remove it completely.
Ingredients: 250 g red chillies · 1½ tsp salt · 2 tbsp rice or white vinegar · ½ pcs lime
Stem the chillies
Wash and dry the chillies thoroughly, cut off the stems and chop roughly. Do not remove the seeds — sambal oelek contains them and they supply part of the heat. For milder, seed half the chillies.
Ingredients: 250 g red chillies · 1½ tsp salt · 2 tbsp rice or white vinegar · ½ pcs lime
Stems off, seeds in — they are part of the heat.Grind the chillies with salt in a mortar
Put the chillies and salt in a mortar and grind with a circular motion of the pestle, pressing into the base — in an ordinary mortar work in batches, about 10 minutes in all. The salt acts as an abrasive and draws out juice. You end up with a coarse, glossy paste with visible pieces of skin.
Ingredients: 250 g red chillies · 1½ tsp salt · 2 tbsp rice or white vinegar · ½ pcs lime
Round and pressing — the salt is the abrasive.Do not grind it smooth
Leave the paste coarse, with flecks of skin and seed. Sambal oelek is not a sauce — it is a paste with clear texture. Ground smooth it loses its character and looks like concentrate.
Ingredients: 250 g red chillies · 1½ tsp salt · 2 tbsp rice or white vinegar · ½ pcs lime
Add vinegar for keeping
Stir in the vinegar and lime juice. The acid inhibits microbes and extends keeping to several weeks. In Indonesia sambal is often ground fresh for a single meal, and then no acid is needed.
Ingredients: 250 g red chillies · 1½ tsp salt · 2 tbsp rice or white vinegar · ½ pcs lime
Taste and salt
Taste carefully, from the tip of a teaspoon. Sambal should be hot, salty and fruity, clearly tasting of fresh pepper. If it lacks definition, add a pinch of salt — salt brings out the chilli's fruitiness.
Ingredients: 250 g red chillies · 1½ tsp salt · 2 tbsp rice or white vinegar · ½ pcs lime
Spoon into a jar
Spoon into a small sterilised jar, pressing down to remove air pockets, and level the surface. Air in the jar is where mould appears.
Ingredients: 250 g red chillies · 1½ tsp salt · 2 tbsp rice or white vinegar · ½ pcs lime
Pressed down, no air pockets — that is where mould grows.Keep in the fridge
Seal and store in the fridge. Sambal oelek goes by the teaspoon into fried rice, noodles, soups and marinades, or sits on the table as a hot condiment — rather as salt and pepper do in Europe.
Ingredients: 250 g red chillies · 1½ tsp salt · 2 tbsp rice or white vinegar · ½ pcs lime
Before you start
A blender if you must
A blender works, but pulse it and add no water. The paste comes out finer and slightly wetter. A processor with a blade is better than a jug blender, as it chops the skins less.
The base for other sambals
Sambal oelek is a base: with shrimp paste and palm sugar it becomes sambal terasi, with tomato and shallot sambal tomat, with kecap manis sambal kecap. Worth always having in the fridge.
A month in the fridge
With vinegar it keeps a month in the fridge, darkening and mellowing with time. Always take it out with a clean, dry spoon. Frozen in small portions it keeps six months.