Golden Fried Quail Egg Sambal (Sambal Telur)

Golden fried quail eggs. Spicy sambal. Add a few slices of cucumber and a bowl of steamed rice of coconut rice. It makes a perfect dinner. For me that is.

There are many different way of making egg sambal. Mostly with hard-boiled chicken eggs, I like the eggs to be deep-fried before stirring in the sambal. The crunchy texture makes it more palatable. I use quail eggs purely for their daintiness.

Some egg sambal recipes call for coconut milk, especially from the Southern region of Malaysia and Singapore but I like it without the coconut milk and slightly sweeter with lots of thinly sliced Bombay (brown) onions. It's similar to the sambal ikan bilis in Nasi Lemak except to replace the dried anchovies (ikan bilis) with deep-fried quail eggs.

Quail Egg Sambal (Sambal Telur) Recipe

Ingredients

24 hard-boiled quail eggs
4 fresh red chilli, deseeded and roughly chopped
8 (100 g) small Asian shallots
3 garlic
1/2 tbsp shrimp paste, toasted
2 candlenuts or macadamia nuts
4 tbsp oil
1 tbsp tamarind pulp + 1/2 cup water
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 small brown onion, thinly sliced

Method

1. Deep fry the quail eggs in hot oil until golden brown and crisp.
2. Mix the tamarind pulp with water. Squeeze out the tamarind juice from the pulp and discard the seeds. Strain through a fine sieve. Set aside until needed.
3. Combine fresh red chilli, bird's eye chilli, shallots, garlic, shrimp paste and candlenuts together in a mortar and pestle or a food process and pound or whiz until it forms a fine paste.
4. Heat oil in a wok, add the paste and fry under low heat until it's aromatic, about 8-10 minutes.
5. Add the tamarind juice to the paste together with sugar and salt. Stir and mix well.
6. Add brown onion and continue to stir fry until the onion has soften a little but still have slight texture, around 2-3 minutes.
7. Add the deep-fried quail eggs and give it a good stir. Served hot with steamed rice or coconut rice.