A Long Lost Email, Memories of Southeast Asia and A Recipe for Malaysian Sambol

The last thing I expected while hunting through my gmail for the spicy sambol recipe from a cooking class I took in Penang, Malaysia five or so years ago was a chain of messages sent to a good climbing friend who’d travelled a similar path through Southeast Asia a few years earlier. I did eventually find the Word doc. from the class, but I also spent 20 minutes re-reading our messages and falling back into how I’d felt during that trip.

I’d told him about the cooking class, which is why the messages showed up, and I’d waxed appropriately poetic about nasi lemak, the dish made of coconut rice, hardboiled egg, optional chicken curry, peanuts, cucumbers, and fiery chili paste called sambol that Malaysians often eat at breakfast (and so do I). I’d also told him about meeting a fellow food-loving Montrealer on my plane to JFK and how we were both connecting through Tokyo, so we couldn’t miss our plane since we were in it together. Then we missed the plane, mostly because of that same confidence.

Then we slept in the airport, finally made another plane the next day, after which I intentionally slept in Bangkok airport after connecting through Narita in Japan (and discovering the free tastings of saké in that airport). I remembered how exhausted I was and the protein bars I’d eaten in the JFK food court. I remembered the cleaning man who’d come through the deserted waiting area around 2am with his floor poliosher and asked me to please move from the uncomfortable seat where I was curled up with my massive backpack for the night. I remembered the little containers (like elementary school recess) of Haagen Daaz ice cream on the Japan Airlines flight and how I didn’t care about my lactose intolerance. I remembered the bubble tea shops in the Bangkok airport.

I remembered finally arriving in Tonsai where I was heading to rock climb and hoping that all the hardships were over.

I remembered getting stomach sick for an entire day and being nursed by my roommate, who happened to be a hospital orderly, as the cockroaches ran up my mosquito netting in our shared bungalow.

I remembered climbing for a week and deep water soloing for the first time. Eating green curries, fried egg on rice with hot sauces that had probably been sitting out too long.

And I remembered jumping on a plane with a climber I’d just met and heading to Malaysia.

This is what happened in Malaysia after that, if you’re curious.

Then this cooking class, the one with the recipe for Malaysian sambal and nasi lemak.

Then Dengue.

P.S. Dengue is no fun, but spicy nasi lemak with homemade sambol is, as is falling down the rabbit hole into almost-forgotten memories, both of a great adventure and of a friendship and correspondence that reminds you that you used to be funny…

Spicy Sambal for Nasi Lemak

This is not the original recipe from the cooking class I took in Penang, Malaysia, because I wouldn’t betray that teacher by giving it away. This is also not the variation that Yotam Ottolenghi has for coconut rice with red curry sambol and swiss chard in his cookbook Plenty. But I will give you my own version with my tamarind trick: Did you know you can swap rhubarb in for tamarind in your Southeast Asian curries and soups? The next time you’re wrinkling your nose at the idea of straining boiling hot, fibrous tamarind into a paste, just toss some frozen chunks of rhubarb (which you have of course saved from the spring or fall harvest) into your pot instead. Yes, I know you’ haven’t planned ahead for this, but maybe you will next time you have an abundance of rhubarb and a little freezer space. You should grind this in a mortar and pestle. I cheat with a blender. It’s not as good.

2 shallots or small onions, diced
5 hot Thai Birds-Eye chili peppers
5 dried red chili peppers, with or without seeds depending on how much heat you like
1 tbsp toasted belancan or shrimp paste, optional (slice it and cook it in a pan for a couple minutes until aromatic and browned slightly on both sides)
6 cloves of garlic
1 inch peeled ginger
1 fresh or frozen lemongrass stalk (bottom part only, tough exterior removed. (I also freeze these. You can also find them preserved in jars in Asian food sections of grocery stores)
4 candlenuts (no one has candlenuts. Use macadamia nuts instead, or peeled almonds in a pinch)
1 cup cubed rhubarb (or 1 inch of tamarind pulp soaked in 1/2 cup boiling water, then sieved well)
1/2 cup water (only if using rhubarb and if needed to blend)

2 tbsp cooking oil
1 1/2 tbsp palm sugar
1 tsp salt (only if you didn’t use the shrimp paste)

1. Combine the onions, chilies, belancan, garlic, ginger, lemongrass and candlenuts and rhubarb in a blender with the optional water if needed to blend.
2. Grind until chunky. You want some texture.
3. Heat the oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. When hot, add the paste. Reduce the heat to medium-low (unless you need to cook off a ton of excess water because your blender wouldn’t blend.)
4. Cook for about 20 minutes, stirring frequently.
5. Add the sugar and salt if needed. Cook 5 minutes more or until thick and adjust salt and sugar to taste.
6. Serve with all the nasi lemak fixings, or just hardboiled eggs or coconut rice.