Sambal Tempoyak

Kris commented in one of my post that I am a daredevil for eating expired food. I'm going to pull another stunt by eating tempoyak (fermented durians) that has been in the fridge for God knows how long.

Last year, during the durian season, my partner brought back 2 small trays of durians from Penang to feed his Durian Queen. Unfortunately the durians were not in tip top condition. So his Durian Queen decreed "Waste not!" and proceeded to make tempoyak.

There's lots of bacterial activity in here.

I don't know the exact proportion of durians to salt, so I just agak-agak. After 3 days of fermentation, I put the tempoyak in the fridge and conveniently forgot about it until last weekend. 

I asked my friend Jalil, the kitchen maestro, if he had any recipes using tempoyak and how long can tempoyak keep. He replied with regrets that tempoyak is not to his liking. In fact he doesn't even like budu. Hello bro. Are you seriously from Terengganu?

Take a deeeeep breath.

With that, I was left to my own devices as to how to utilize my very ripe and prime tempoyak. I googled and found many recipes. So many that I could not decide which to choose. In situations like this, I just go ahead and make something of my own based on what I saw in the other recipes.

I pounded some red chillies, one big onion, garlic and a handful of ikan bilis into a paste. Since I am a daredevil, I must live up to my reputation and I added 7 cili padi. The whole lot was sauteed in hot oil until aromatic. Then I added 2 generous tablespoons of tempoyak and seasoned the sambal with one rounded teaspoon of sugar.

Hopefully the hot oil would kill all the harmful bacteria in the tempoyak hah..hah..hah... The smell was pungent and wonderful. Wonderful to people like me who love durians but it was most likely stinky to those who treat durians like plutonium.

I had a taste. Woo...la...la...la...!!! It was salty, sourish, sweetish and oh so fierce. Love it! Love it! Love it! This sambal went so well with fried fish and hot steaming rice. 

Well, I completed another feat of eating dodgy food and lived to tell the tale. From what I read, tempoyak can keep for months if you make it properly under sterile conditions. I still have about 2 or 3 tablespoons of tempoyak leftover after making this sambal. That means I have a chance of trying another recipe. 

Sambal Tempoyak

Recipe source : Phong Hong

Ingredients :

- 5 red chillies

- 7 cili padi

- 1 big onion

- 3 cloves garlic

- a handful of ikan bilis, washed and drained

- 2 generous tablespoons tempoyak

- 1 teaspoon sugar or to taste

Method :

1. Pound red chillies, cili padi, onion, garlic and ikan bilis.

2. Heat oil in wok and saute the pounded ingredients until  cooked and aromatic (about 10 minutes).

3. Add tempoyak and mix into the sauteed ingredients and continue to fry for another 10 minutes.

4. Season with sugar to taste.