Hey Andrew, that wonderful stuff, blachan – the compressed shrimp paste. In case you don’t already know, and shut me up if you do; but there’s a trick to using it well. A lot of recipes just say something like “dry fry the blachan in a hot wok.” This is fine, but a much better, richer experience can be had if you simply wrap the piece of blachan (teaspoon, tablespoon, or whatever) in AlFoil, and chuck it in the hot wok for about a minute. This retains the full flavour and makes it easily crumbly for dissipation into the dish (great word, that — dissipation!).
Ian Whitepappa
Thanks for that, Ian… I’ll give it a go over the weekend. Trying to only cook with what ingredients are in the kitchen, as there’s quite a bit, without having to head out for supplies.
In Indonesia they call it Terasi, and they roast it before using it in cooking.
I make a fake Rujak Kuah Pindang with Terasi and Fish Sauce. Yum.
Terasi and Fish Sauce! Wow! Look out kitchen… this is the kind of mix you prep up when no one’s visiting!
[...] where they can share their fine and fiery creations, particularly Ian, who knows what to do with blachan and where this stuff comes [...]