Sambal Tudai Umbut Rotan｜North Kalimantan

Part 26/38 in a series exploring one dish from each province of Indonesia.

This is meant to use rattan shoots, but these don’t seem to be available where I am currently so I’ve substituted bamboo shoots. This isn’t ideal, as rattan shoots seem to feature quite heavily in North Kalimantan cuisine, but hopefully it’s vaguely in the right area to get an idea of how this dish should taste. Being a heavily flavoured sambal, I’m hoping the flavour of the cockles and the sauce would overpower any flavour from the veg anyway, and their main purpose would be texture.

Adapted from here.

☒ UNTESTED

Ingredients

Main stuff

• 500 g cockles
• 3 stalks of young rattan (__ bamboo shoots), cut into 3 cm pieces
• 2 big red chillies, sliced diagonally
• Tamarind paste
• Sugar to taste
• Salt to taste
• Chicken powder to taste

Spices to blend

• 10 Indonesian onions (3 shallots)
• 5 cloves of garlic
• 3 cm turmeric
• 3 cm ginger
• 3 cm galangal
• 3 stalks of lemongrass
• 20 red bird’s eye chillies
• 5 red cayenne chillies

Prep

Blend up the blended bits.

Cooking

Sauté the blended stuff until fragrant.

Add the cockles, cook for __ minutes.

Add the rattan/bamboo and a little water, cook “until the rattan shoots are cooked”.

Add the salt, sugar, chicken powder, and tamarind to taste.

Add the sliced chilli and serve.