Soak, roast, and blend a fine rempah

Cover the dried chillies with just-boiled water for 15 minutes, then drain and squeeze them dry. If the candlenuts are raw, roast them at 150°C for 15 minutes and cool; never taste them raw. If the belacan is sold raw rather than toasted, toast it in the dry heavy pot over medium-low for about 1 minute per face, with ventilation, then cool and wipe the pot. Blend the drained dried chillies, fresh chillies, shallots, garlic, sliced lemongrass, galangal, fresh turmeric, and roasted candlenuts with exactly 80 ml of the measured water. Scrape often and continue until fine; reserve the remaining 170 ml water for braising.

Ready when

The rempah is a fine spoonable orange-red paste with no long lemongrass fibres and no free water around it.

Use now

4/4 portions · 1×

20 g, stems removed and seeds shaken out for medium heatdried long red chilliescabai merah kering panjang

100 g, roughly choppedfresh long red chilliescabai merah besar segar

250 g peeled weight, roughly choppedAsian red shallotsbawang merah

25 g peeled weightgarlicbawang putih

3 stalks, about 60 g trimmed, thinly slicedlemongrass, tender white inner partserai, bagian putih muda

30 g peeled, sliced thinly across the fibresfresh galangallengkuas segar

25 g peeled, slicedfresh turmeric rootkunyit segar

30 g, about 5 nutsroasted candlenutskemiri sangrai

12 g, crumbledtoasted Malaysian belacanbelacan Malaysia yang sudah dipanggang

250 mlwater, dividedair, dibagi