Sambal Bawang

Javanese raw shallot and chilli sambal, pounded coarse and scalded with hot oil

Origin: East Java, Indonesia

From the journey of Shallot.

Of the many hundreds of Indonesian sambals, this is the one that puts the shallot in front rather than behind. Sambal bawang means shallot sambal, and the recipe is close to nothing: raw shallots, raw bird's eye chillies, garlic, salt, and hot oil poured over. There is no cooking of the aromatics, no tomato, no shrimp paste in the plainest versions, and no long reduction. What you taste is the shallot itself, sharp and sweet and barely tamed by the oil that scalds it. The hot oil is the whole technique. Poured at frying temperature over the pounded mixture, it cooks the outside of everything in a few seconds whilst leaving the interior raw, which knocks back the harshest of the sulphur compounds without cooking away the freshness. Stir the same ingredients into cold oil and the result is aggressive; simmer them and you have made a different, duller sambal. It belongs to the warungs of East Java and is inseparable from ayam penyet and ayam geprek, the smashed fried chicken dishes of Surabaya, where the chicken is pressed down into a mound of it on the plate. Its heat is not moderate. A domestic batch takes twenty or thirty bird's eye chillies and Javanese cooks would consider that restrained. The stone mortar is not decorative. Pounding crushes the cell walls and releases juice into the mixture, where blades merely cut, and a food processor gives a sambal that is wetter, paler, and noticeably less pungent.

Ingredients

Sambal

  • 200 g shallots, peeled and roughly chopped
  • 25 whole bird's eye chillies, stalks removed
  • 6 cloves garlic, peeled
  • 1.5 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp caster sugar or palm sugar

To Finish

  • 120 ml neutral oil
  • 1 tbsp lime juice, optional
  • 1 tsp terasi (shrimp paste), toasted, optional

Method

  1. Pound the chillies and garlic with the salt in a stone mortar until broken down but still coarse.
  2. Add the shallots a handful at a time and pound to a coarse, wet, uneven paste. It should not be smooth.
  3. Work in the sugar and the toasted terasi if using.
  4. Scrape the paste into a heatproof bowl and spread it out so the hot oil will reach as much of it as possible.
  5. Heat the oil in a small pan until it shimmers and a scrap of shallot dropped in sizzles hard on contact, around 180°C.
  6. Pour the hot oil over the paste in one go. It will hiss and foam and the smell will be violent.
  7. Stir once to combine, then leave to cool. Add the lime juice once it is at room temperature, if using.
  8. Taste for salt and serve at room temperature.

Notes

Twenty-five bird's eye chillies is a genuinely hot sambal and is the standard East Javanese quantity. Halve it for a first attempt and use large red chillies for part of the weight if you want colour without heat. A stone mortar gives a noticeably better result than a processor. If you must use a machine, pulse rather than blend and stop whilst it is still coarse. It keeps for a week refrigerated under a film of the oil and the flavour softens and rounds after a day. Serve with ayam penyet or ayam geprek, with grilled fish, with fried tofu and tempeh, or simply with rice and a fried egg. Sambal matah, the Balinese one, uses the same raw shallot idea but slices rather than pounds and adds lemongrass and lime leaf.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

Mapping Culinary History

To explore — select an ingredient below.

Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
© 2026 The Gastrographer. All original research, narratives, and illustrations. All rights reserved.