FUNNYACCENT: Even Sambal Belacan Can Cure My Homesickness- Part 1

When you're far, far away from home, seeing, hearing, or smelling something that ties to your homeland is like a medicine to your homesickness. Little things that you overlook before, suddenly have their significant. You develop your sensitivity that you didn't know you have it all along. It's like when you learn rollerblading. Once you learn to balance yourself on the wheels, you learn to stop, move forward and backward and sides, you're forced to use the muscles that you never knew you had them. Once you get hang to it, you can't stop, but wait until a few months you'll start to notice your legs have develop some muscles here and there at the right place.

That's how I see it I've been living here far from home. I've become more observance and sensitive.

Everytime I go to Supermarket 88, I walk up to every aisle they have looking for products made in Malaysia even though I know the possibility of seeing canned, bottled, wrapped, rolled and packed food that made in Malaysia is very low. So, far I've seen two types of food that manufactured in Malaysia.

Kuih Bakar (Coconut cookies) comes in a clear plastic bag.
Mee Maggie (Instant nodules)

So, when I spotted a yellow shining wrap package with the word Belacan, Made in Malaysia, I wished I could grab the Vietnamese lady who was scolding her young son in a shattered glass voice, dragged her from her cart and showed her what I had found. "Shut the hell up lady and let me show you this." So, I kept the giddiness I felt to myself.

A key ingredient, in many classic dishes of Malaysia, is a dried shrimp paste called Belacan, also spelt Belachan or Blacan. It's usually in the form of a small pressed brick or cake. Not overly 'fishy', a tiny amount of this paste adds sweetness to meats, intensity to fish & seafood and a 'kick' to vegetables like Kangkung Belacan. Belacan makes a flavorful base for sauces and gravies, adding depth and an intriguing taste that you can't quite decipher. The pressed cake has a powerful scent when uncooked, like "stinky cheese". But don't be put off - it mellows out & harmonizes in the cooking, leaving behind an understated richness that cannot be reproduced. Best described as a natural flavor enhancer, belacan is what gives many of the foods from Southeast Asia - Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam - that authentic zest and flavor underlying the dense fabric of spice and herbs!

Belacan is a must have ingredient in Malays household. Sambal Belacan is incomplete without belacan. Sambal Belacan is made of red chillies, roasted shrimp paste,concentrate tamarind juice, a pinch of sugar and a pinch of salt.I remember the first time I grounded the chillies I was about 10 years old. I was too eager to help Mak in the kitchen I ignored Rule #2 Mak told me. Never look directly at the chilies in the mortar when the chillies started to break into small pieces. Rule #1 which also I broke was to bring pestle not higher than the edge of mortar. The next thing I knew a small piece of chillie splat into my right eye. Waaaaaaaaaaaaa........I ran into the bathroom.

When a blender invaded Mak's kitchen, Mak still refused to use the blender to make sambal belacan. She preferred to use an old fashion way to prepare sambal belacan.

Listening to: Hypnotic, Paul Taylor.