Sambal Lebur

I am always on the lookout for sambal recipes, especially the easy ones that require no exact measurements where you can simply chuck stuff, blend and then simply saute the whole lot in the wok.

While doing my rounds on my Malay bloglist, I read about Hainom's Sambal Lebur. What attracted me to the sambal was her remark "Buatnya pun senang main lebur je". I'm all for lebur. Anything that can lebured, I will lebur!

Now what on earth does lebur mean? If you look up the dictionary, it would be translated as melt or molten as in melting metals. But in this context, lebur means you simply put in ingredients casually and then cook it without a care in the world.

That weekend, I gathered my red chilies, cili padi, onions, garlic, ikan bilis and belacan. These were pounded in my trusty lesung batu (I needed the exercise). I thought I would get only a small portion of sambal but a little bit of this and a little bit of that added to a lot.

I heated some oil in the wok and sauteed the pounded ingredients. As for the tomatoes, I used cherry tomatoes (which I got FOC from BMS Organics when I purchased organic coffee), each cut into two.

The smell of the sambal was amazing and I basically cooked it until the tomatoes were softened. Then I added asam jawa juice and sugar for that tangy sweetish taste. There was no necessity to add salt as the belacan was already salty enough.

Since I had so much, I kept the sambal in a glass container to be enjoyed in the days to come. In fact, this sambal came in handy when I fried a fish. I used it as topping.

I'm glad I learnt something new, though it may be something some will consider as no big deal. So folks, for an appetizing sambal, go ahead and make this Sambal Lebur. No stress, no tension. Go forth and lebur away!