Belacan - smell-ful food #1

Today I shall blog about belacan. Belacan, otherwise known as fermented shrimp cake (with lots of salt, and apparently, ash), is used in a wide variety of Malaysian dishes. It lends a subtle shrimpy (anchovy-like) seafood flavour to the meal.
Amy Beh has written a recipe for the famous sambal belacan in my favourite recipe site, Star Kuali.

Ingredients
# 10 red chillies
# 4cm piece belacan, roast till fragrant
# Pinch of salt
# 1 limau kasturi

Method
Pound chillies until rather coarse in texture.
Break up roasted belacan and add into chilli mixture gradually.
Continue to pound until texture is neither too smooth nor too coarse.
Add pinch of salt. Put sambal in a bowl. Squeeze lime juice in and mix well.
Serve sambal as an accompanying side dish.

Another great recipe from Amy Beh again: source here. This time she uses Maggi(TM) Belacan granules. The wonders of modern technology... :D

Stir-Fried Sweet Potato Leaves with Sambal Belacan

Ingredients:
300g sweet potato leaves
3 tbsp oil
1 tbsp dried prawns, soaked, drained and pounded.

Pounded ingredients
3 shallots
2 cloves garlic
4 red chillies, seeded.
1 1/2 tsp Maggi belacan granules

Seasoning
Pinch of salt
1/2 tsp sugar or to taste
1/2 tsp chicken stock granules

Method:
Pluck the leaves out from the stalks. Cut the stalks into 7cm lengths discarding the tough parts of the stalks. Wash and dram sell.

Heat wok over high heat until hot then add in oil. Fry the pounded dried prawns until aromatic. Add the rest of the pounded ingredients and stir-fry well.

Put in sweet potato leaves and stalks and stir-fry briskly for 1-2 minutes. Add seasoning to mix. Dish out and serve immediately.

More yummy recipes here. Happy belacan-ing!