If you recall one of my pre-007 posts, one of my resolutions for 2007 was to cook more malaysian-type dishes ; food that I grew up with,from scratch, rather than passing off maggi mee goreng mata kerbau (instant noodle with fried egg)as my specialty

Thus masak-masak was born; my Sunday cooking sessions at home.

My first dish was inspired by spotting a well-loved vegetable at the chinese supermarket – it is not often that we get kangkung/water spinach here at hicksville. And of course, there is only one way to cook kangkung – in belacan (shrimp paste)

And I seemed to have lost my pictures documenting this important event!

Never mind – lets move on to my next installment in masak-masak

Sambal telur (egg in spicy thick sauce)
This is a typical dish available in most Malay eataries around Malaysia. It is also available in nasi kandar (indian muslim rice stalls) restaurants. It is deepfried hardboiled eggs coated with a spice paste. The spice paste is the most important part of the dish, and it varies from cook to cook – some have it really really fiery,spicy and red, and some cook it in a more fragrant and lightly spiced sauce. I was never a big fan of this, but Bacon loves it absolutely completely, so let’s welcome the humble sambal egg into masak-masak.

Step 1: boil about 6 eggs till hard boiled – should take 10 mins?

step 2: Prepare your rempah (spice mix)

I use 4 shallots, 2 lemongrass stalk, juice of 1 lemon, 2 teaspoon belacan,4 cloves of garlic and 3 chillies

step 3: and jig em’ all around – either use a food processor or do it old-skool like me- pestle & mortar. Better still if you can have access to giling it, basically a pestle and mortar but a flat surfaced rock and a rolling-pin like pestle.

step 4:Chop tomatoes (try to de-skin & de-seed it) and squeeze your lemons.Leave aside to add on to sauce later.

step 5: Deepfry your hard boiled eggs (peel first, of course).Make sure they are nice and golden,with nice brown outer skin.

set aside

step 6: tumis (shallow fry) the sambal paste in low fire until fragant – about 5 minutes.

step 7:Add the tomatoes and the lemon juice and continue cooking.Add eggs and make sure it is completely coated with the sauce

tip: add some fresh coriander if you’re a freak like me

step 8: sprinkle ikan bilis (deepfried whitebait/anchovies) and surf’s up!

It was damn freaking good ok…yumm

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• Sambal Telur -Malaysian spicy-sweet boiled egg
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• infamous nasi lemak
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