Ingredients for the chilli paste

  • 5 large red chillies
  • 1 teaspoon shrimp paste
  • ½ onion
  • 10 garlic cloves
  • 40g ginger
  • ½ bunch coriander roots
  • 2 lemongrass stalks – peeled and chopped
  • fish sauce
  • 100g pork fat

Ingredients for the sambal

  • 250g shredded coconut
  • 200g peanuts
  • 1 teaspoons cumin
  • 1 teaspoon ground coriander seeds
  • Oil for cooking
  • 50g palm sugar
  • 3 teaspoons fish sauce
  • 300g cleaned squid – medium size
  • 1 lime
  • Thai basil
  • Granny Smith apple

Method
Make the paste first. Cut the chillies in half lengthways and remove seeds. Place the chillis in hot water for 3-4 minutes, then drain and chop. Place the chillies in a blender with all the other paste ingredients and blend. You may need to add just a little water to make the paste smooth.

Heat the pork fat in a heavy-based pan and add paste. Cook very slowly (until all the liquid has gone - about 2 hours) making sure it doesn’t catch on the bottom of the pan. After about one hour add palm sugar and 1 tablespoon of fish sauce. The paste should be a rich red brown colour and smell heavenly. Remove from the heat.

For the sambal – roast the peanuts and roast the coconut – be careful, it likes to burn! Dry-fry the cumin and coriander to release their flavour. Finely chop half the peanuts, combine all the ingredients and mix thoroughly.

To prepare the squid – slit the hoods lengthways and open out into little sheets. Turn the inside facing upwards. Now score the squid with a sharp knife in parallel lines around 1cm apart. Turn the squid a quarter turn and repeat the scoring – being careful not to cut all the way through. Cut into strips roughly 6cm x 4cm.

Now get a pan really hot and add a film of oil, when the oil is really hot add the squid scored side down. Don’t disturb the squid until it slightly colours and curls up. Add 2 tablespoons of the paste to the pan with remaining fish sauce and stir around to coat the squid. Sprinkle with zest and juice from one lime.

Arrange on a plate. Top with a fine julienne of the apple that has been mixed with basil and the peanut-coconut mix and serve immediately.

David Lamv

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