Egg Sambal Tumis and Fried Sardines

For me, one the surprises about living in the Bay Area is the number of Singaporeans who are here. We are lucky to have made a few good friends from Singapore who, of course, share our love of good food. I cook often and enjoy inviting our friends for a meal. Usually, having guests over for a meal require some planning. But when you can make simple home-cooked food for a fellow Singaporean, little planning is necessary. For this meal, I already had eggs in the fridge. Dried chilies are a pantry staple. Then I picked-up some kangkong from the Chinese supermarket and fresh sardines from Whole Foods to complete our menu.

I made sambal belacan kangkong with the sambal belacan from my mum. The sardines were fried and the eggs were boiled for sambal tumis. This is a sambal where dried chili paste is sauteed until it turns into a deep red and then sweetened with sugar. And I love pairing this sambal with fried fish because they go so well together. My mum would serve these dishes with nasi lemak, which is white rice cooked in coconut cream with a pandan leaf or two thrown in. But for that night, we had brown rice with our simple kampung ('village') dishes.

Egg Sambal Tumis (Sambal Tumis Telur)

6 eggs
1 oz or 20 dried chilies
10 shallots
3 garlic
1-inch shrimp paste (belacan), toasted
2-inch tamarind paste
1½ cup hot water
2 tablespoons sugar

1. Make hard boiled eggs. Cool and peel the shells.

2. De-seed the dried chilies and soak in warm water for half an hour. Pound or grind to a paste. Peel the shallots and garlic, then pound or grind with shrimp paste. Put the tamarind paste into the hot water to make tamarind juice.

3. Heat oil in wok or saucepan to medium heat. Add in the shallot, garlic and shrimp paste blend. Saute for about 2 minutes. Add the chili paste and continue frying for 2 minutes. Then add the tamarind juice. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and continue cooking until the mixture turns into a deep red, about 15-20 minutes. Add sugar and stir until it dissolves. Taste the sambal. If there is too much heat, add more tamarind juice and/or sugar.

4. Switch off the heat and add the eggs.

Fried Sardines (Ikan Tamban Goreng)

6 fresh sardines
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon salt
oil for frying

1. Gut and clean the fish (you can ask your fishmonger to do it). Dry the fish as much as possible. Then rub the sardines with turmeric powder and salt.

2. Heat about ½-inch oil in a wok or pan to high heat. Put in the sardines; in batches if necessary. Lower the heat slight. Fry until the fish turn golden brown, or about 3-4 minutes. Then turn over and fry for another 3 minutes.

3. Remove fish onto paper towel to drain the oil.

Salted fish fried rice with brown rice

My mum told me that salted fish used to be a poor man's food. Fish preserved with salt was food that families could keep for a long time without refrigeration. As a kid, she ate salted fish that had been fried, with plain rice, and a sprinkle of sweet soy sauce, for a meal. Then she had her own family. She would cook chicken, or beef and vegetables for us, but sometimes, she would have a little fried salted fish on the side. She and my dad would eat that with other dishes. I was always invited to try, but I would just wrinkle my nose and shake my head. To me, salted fish was not a poor man's food but rather, it was old people's food. Of course, my parents were barely in their forties at that time.

I have finally acquired the taste for salted fish. I suppose it means I am in the "old people" category now. My preferred way of eating the salted fish is in fried rice. In this recipe for Dish #6, I use brown basmati rice because we are eating more of that at home. This dish is usually cooked with chicken pieces - I substituted that with tofu to cut the saltiness. I also added vegetable broth because I like my fried rice moist. I served the fried rice with my mum's sambal belacan but you can use any chili or sambal you have e.g. Sriracha or sambal oelek.



Salted fish fried rice with brown rice

3 cups of day old brown rice
2 oz salted fish, cut into ½ inch cubes
2 oz snow peas, sliced ½ inch
6 oz baked tofu or any dense tofu, cut into 1-inch cubes
2 eggs
4 garlic cloves, minced
1-inch ginger, minced
a few sprigs of cilantro
1 tablespoon fish sauce (or soy sauce)
1 teaspoon white pepper
3 tablespoons vegetable stock
3 tablespoons oil
a few drops of sesame oil

1. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a wok to medium heat and fry the eggs (scrambled). Remove eggs and heat 2 tablespoon of oil.

2. Fry the garlic, keeping heat at medium or slightly lower so that the garlic does not burn. Add the ginger and continue frying until fragrant or about 1 minute. Put in the salted fish, tofu and snow peas. Fry for about 2 minutes.

3. Add the rice and fried eggs, mixing all the ingredients together. Pour in the fish sauce and vegetable broth. Stir well. Then sprinkle in the white pepper followed by the sesame oil. Stir again.

4. To serve, scoop the rice into two bowls and put a few cilantro leaves on each bowl. Sambal is optional.

Serves 2