Try This Mouth-Watering Sambal Petai Ikan Bilis Recipe For Your Lunch

STINK BEAN, also known as petai, is widely consumed in Southeast Asia. The beans grow hanging from a tree, wrapped in a tough outer skin of pods.

Inside these pods are long, flat edible bright green beans the size and shape of plump almonds which have a rather peculiar smell but are deliciously nutty and nutritious.

Highlighted

Those who love it follow their noses through markets in search of these pungent yet prized stinky beans.

Petai is consumed either raw or cooked. It has been used in folk medicine to treat diabetes, hypertension, and kidney problems.

The younger beans are often eaten raw while the more mature beans are best paired with other strong flavours such as chilli and shrimp paste to make sambal petai; a spicy and delicious dish bejewelled with these green orbs.

For fans of petai (stinky beans), this dish is really appetizing.

Often served with Nasi Lemak or plain old rice, in Malaysia, sambal petai seems to pop up in all sorts of cuisines be it Malay, Chinese, Indian, Nyonya or Eurasian.

It is safe to say that Sambal Petai is truly something all Malaysian can relate to and unite with.

Easily found in restaurants throughout the country, this dish is also commonly made at home.

Today, I’m going to share how I cook this appetizing dish.

Ingredients:

• 50g stinky beans (petai)
• 50g anchovies
• A dozen quail eggs
• 5 cloves garlic
• 5 shallot
• 10 red chilli
• 1 inch dried shrimp paste
• 1 stalk lemongrass
• 1 big onion
• Oil

Method

1. Remove the thick skin as well as the thin white layer of the petai.
2. Cut the stinky beans in half to check for worms because you may sometimes find a couple of ‘big-eyed monster’ inside as they love petai as much as we do.
3. Discard those with worms if you do find them.
4. Boil quail eggs.
5. Remove the shell and set it aside.
6. Blend garlic, shallots, dried shrimp paste, lemongrass and red chilli. Set it aside.
7. Heat oil in a wok.
8. Fry boiled quail eggs until the skin turns crispy. Set aside.
9. Fry anchovies until golden brown and crispy.
10. Use the same oil to fry the blended chilli paste.
11. Fry until fragrant and oil begins to appear on the surface. We call this ‘pecah minyak’.
12. Add sliced big onion, tamarind juice and salt and sugar to taste.
13. Add stinky beans. You can add petai at the end of the cooking process if you prefer them with a crunchy texture when eaten.
14. Add quail eggs and lastly, fried anchovies.
15. Stir till everything is coated with sambal.
16. Serve with steamed rice.

As delicious as they are, I would not recommend to eat them on your first date as these beans follow you from tree to pee. Oops!