Saturday, March 31, 2007

Frying of Sambal, Curry or Spice Paste


When I first started cooking curries, the frying of the paste 'until fragrant and oil separates from the paste ' was a puzzle. No matter how long I fried it, no oil appeared. So I had to resort to guess work as to when the paste is considered ready. One day I decided to try out the gas bbq wok burner to fry the paste and voila - oil did start coming out of the paste.

This is the sequence of frying the spice paste for my satay sauce.

grinded paste ready for frying


Pic 1. The paste is fried in 2 Tbsp of oil.
Pic 2. After a few minutes of frying, the oil is slowly absorbed.



Pic 3 . The paste is getting dryer.
Pic 4. No trace of oil is seen. It would appear at this stage that I am dry frying the paste.


Finally, oil appears again at the bottom of the wok and the paste smells fragrant as well. Because I am using a minimum amount of oil to fry the paste, I do not expect a huge amount of oil to be oozing out.



The paste is now ready for the next stage of cooking. Note the change in colour and texture.

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