Prawn Sambal with Petai and Belimbing

My family loves Petai.  Petai is the local broad bean which scientifically known as Parkia Speciosa.  It's bitter and it stinks but locals love these beans.  The local Malays usually eat them raw but I don't.  Even to me, the smell and the taste is just too strong for me when it's raw.  I prefer mine cooked in sambal.  After eating this, be prepared to have smelly breadth and smelly urine!  You'd think then why on earth do we eat them?

Well, they are simply delicious when you cooked them in sambal and goes very well with white fluffy rice. To top it, they have great health benefits and its not just hearsay.  It's scientifically proven.  Petai carries a wide range of health benefits; from anaemia to heartburn to high blood pressure to constipation to ulcers to stress to strokes and many more.

You can read more benefits of petai from wikipedia.  The Petai is the seeds of long flat pods of bright green.  It's sold quite expensive here which I'm still wondering why. Could it be that the tree is huge and no one dares to climb to get the pods?  I'm glad I found a stall near my home that sells Petai every now and then.  Petai is not all the time available as it's seasonal.  Maybe that's one of the reason why it's not cheap too.

This is the Petai pods

 Peel off the pods, you'll get this bean covered with a thin layer of skin.

To eat them, you have to peel off the skin and it leaves you with the Petai seed.  I usually cut it in half lengthwise just in case there's a little inhabitant in it...the little worm.  I don't want to eat mine with 'extra protein' in it ! .. 

Next, is the Belimbing.  This adds natural sourness to the sambal.  It's scientifically called Aveerhoe Bilimbi.  You can find the goodness of this wonderful fruit in wikipedia too.  I like the tree.  It's very shady and the fruits grow in bunches along the branches of the tree.  Simply beautiful to look at .

So here is the recipe for my sambal.

Blend together into a paste:

handful of shallots

4 candlenuts

2 in shrimp paste

handful of dried chili

300gm prawns, deshelled

1 bowl of belimbing cut into halves

200gm petai, halves

1/2 cup water

salt to taste

1. Heat oil in wok and fry the blended paste till fragrant and oil separates.

2. Add in belimbing and fry till slightly soft.

3. Add in petai, fry for 2 mins.

4. Add water and salt.  

5. Lastly add in prawns and take off heat when prawns are just cooked.

Wonderful aroma, tasteful flavor of spiciness, sourness and saltiness.  MMmmmm.. delicious with nasi lemak or plain rice.