The Fiery, Interesting Globe of Sambal

“Sambal,” chef William Wongso informed me when I arrived in Jakarta in the summer of 2016, “is a state of brain.”

At very first, I assumed I knew exactly what Wongso, the 73-calendar year-previous chef and Indonesian Television set identity who comes about to be the island nation’s chief culinary diplomat, meant—because sambal was my point out of mind.

I might flown there on a hunch: that the sambal oelek I would been ingesting for years—the delectable chile paste from Huy Fong Meals, maker of sriracha—was not the be-all and stop-all of sambal. The phrase sambal, I knew, referred to the spicy condiments located throughout Indonesia (and Malaysia and Singapore), and mainly because Indonesia is produced up of 17,508 islands with specific culinary traditions, I hoped to come upon and begin to fully grasp an untold variety of fiery riches. More than the class of two months, I would bounce from the capital, Jakarta, on the island of Java, to paradisiacal Bali, to the idea of Sulawesi, to the hills and forests of North Sumatra, tasting just about every sambal I could dip a spoon into. Together the way, perhaps I would start off to understand what sambal meant to the 271 million persons in this huge, generally Muslim nation.

I begun to get a sense on a stroll via a tranquil corner of or else frenetic Jakarta, when I glanced within a very small storefront and saw sambal becoming, well, “oeleked”—that is, pounded. In a foot-huge granite mortar identified as a cobek, an more mature female had mainly pink chiles, some inexperienced kinds, shallots, and garlic, which she was mashing nonchalantly with a lawn-long wooden pestle named an ulekan. From this proto-sambal rose the heady and unmistakable fragrance of terasi, a fermented shrimp paste that lends umami depth to dishes throughout the archipelago.

All over the place I went and ate in Jakarta, there was a version of this sambal, referred to as sambal terasi, usually cooked down in oil. It was there with avenue-cart satay, and late-night congee, and breakfast fried rice—providing just ample spicy chunk to wake up all the other flavors. As Wongso and other people informed me, sambal is a person of a few vital factors of a food, alongside with rice and krupuk, the fried crackers as airy as cheese puffs. Acquire a single of those absent, and you might be not really ingesting at all.

When I obtained to Bali, an island east of Java that is largely Hindu, the sambal took a convert for the piquant. Bali’s signature is sambal matah, an uncooked virtually-slaw of chiles, shallots, makrut lime or Crucial lime juice, and coconut oil, normally blended by hand. It really is incredibly hot, slightly crunchy, tart, rich, and an great foundation for other elements, which, dependent on the cook’s choice, could contain terasi, lemongrass, or (my preferred) sweet and floral torch ginger buds. But that was just the commencing. A lunch at the home of photographer Dewandra Djelantik highlighted 10 sambal created by his mom, which includes a single with eco-friendly chiles that had been braised in the drippings from rooster grilled in excess of coconut husks.

The moment upon a time, Djelantik hadn’t even seriously favored sambal. But immediately after he received married, his mom-in-law kept feeding him spicy dishes, and his state of thoughts shifted: “I reported to my wife, ‘Why have not we designed any spicy foodstuff at residence still?’ ‘Because you don’t like any spicy meals!'” He grew to adore it so a lot that he assisted manage a community chile competition beginning in 2010, which currently capabilities 156 distinct sambal, some of them semi-mythical, like 1 from Bali’s Payangan district built with grilled eel bones. I searched for it but by no means found it.

“That kind of sambal is not in the marketplace,” Djelantik explained. “It truly is only in the family members.”

In Ubud, Bali, I uncovered a store termed Very hot Mama Sambal that bought sauces from all about the place, like a West Javanese a person with small anchovies. In the rugged but placid mountains close to the northeastern suggestion of Sulawesi, I tasted a sambal cakalang of chiles, shallots, garlic, tomatoes, and smoked skipjack tuna, all deep-fried collectively, ground, and then refried to absorb the oil. It was so whole of flavor—heat, sweetness, meaty depth—that I would’ve been delighted just to consume it on simple rice (with krupuk, of class).

In North Sumatra, I sampled a sambal that upended all the things I considered I’d realized. It was just environmentally friendly chiles, salt, and andaliman, the juicy eco-friendly area relative of numbing Szechuan peppercorns, pounded with each other. This sambal was strong and almost overwhelmingly refreshing—an ideal complement to a fatty marinated pork dish beloved by North Sumatra’s Batak tribes. The 8.5 million indigenous Batak people are a blend of Christians and Muslims, but many keep classic religious beliefs, with a specific emphasis on the ability of the selection 3: a few main gods, three major hues (crimson, white, and black), and a few flavors—spicy, salty, and bitter. “These a few flavors are basic to our culture,” explained Rahung Nasution, a Batak chef and adventurer who led me as a result of the area. I ate this sambal about and above once again, nowhere additional satisfyingly than with breakfast at a current market stall on the shores of Lake Toba, exactly where a gentleman grilled slabs of pork belly, basting them with butter from a can. Genius.

Following two weeks, I shaped a theory: that in a nation as broad and diverse as Indonesia, sambal functioned as a uniting theory, perhaps the only point some groups experienced in frequent. William Wongso was not so sure. “This is a local wisdom,” he cautioned. “Every single location has their possess, and a single may well not like it.” Nonetheless, he famous, Indonesians had just began to travel domestically, and they appeared keen to consider new flavors. So perhaps, sometime, the chiles would burn down individuals divisions, and spice would come to be the nationwide point out of intellect. E pluribus capsicum!