My previous post touched a little on goodness of chili and how it is great as to cook with in simple home dishes. Apart from the known rich Vitamin C in chili, there is also Vitamin A which contains beta carotenoids. This happens to be a very powerful antioxidant which wipes out free radical bodies that could build up cholesterol causing major heart disease such as atherosclerosis (Omenn, et al., 1996). It is also rich in Vitamin B6 which reduces high homocysteine level. Homocysteine is a non protein amino acid in the blood often related to a higher risk of coronary heart disease. According to Turner (2012), high homocysteine levels have been shown to cause damage to blood vessels and are associated with a greatly increased risk of heart attack and stroke. It also converts homocysteine into other molecules which is beneficial to lower cholesterol level.
For Korean dishes, we do use lots of chilies in many of the dishes. For the Baba Nyonya dishes, it is a cross of Chinese and Malay dishes that is exquisitely unique with its authenticity whereby some dishes also uses a lot of chili. When blending the chilies into pastes, the paste can easily transform into many easy and delicious dishes. So we’ve got some leftover of chili paste and it was too little for me to proceed with Kimchi. Therefore mum went with chicken curry and Chili anchovy’s sambal. Click here for curry chicken and the making.
Preparing the anchovy isn’t difficult. Just deep fried them and you get crispy anchovy ready to go with the sambal. The key to real crunchy and delicious anchovies is to not wash or soak in water prior to frying.
For the sambal, all you have to do is stir the chili paste and add a little salt and sugar for taste. The paste to cook sambal must be added and mixed with some blended onion and garlic. Or else the sambal would taste nothing but just the raw chili. You can try experimenting with the chili sambal that is grind with garlic and onion into raw paste. Taste it first before cooking and the same raw paste when stirred on medium fire to cook it, would taste different. Don’t forget to put in some oil before stirring the chili mix paste.Enjoy the sambal with fried anchovies with rice, noodles, or even bread. I like steam plain pau to go with it. You can also easily transform those paste into many other types of sambal dishes depending on the ingredients. My favourite is fresh prawns. Others would be squids, or chicken breast slices.
With the chili craze mode on, I will next do a post on simple steps to making Korean Kimchi.
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Reference:
Omenn GS, Goodman GE, Thornquist MD, et al.1996, ‘Effects of a combination of beta-carotene and vitamin A on lung cancer and cardiovascular disease’, The New England Journal of Medicine, Vol.334, pp. 1150-55
Turner L., 20 Ways To Save Your Heart, Better Nutrition, 2012, http://www.betternutrition.com
Hello fellow chili lover, wouldnt mind some of that sambal now to go with eggs. Yum yum!
LOL! Suddenly I am thinking of Nasi Lemak..
I like sambal with petai!! YUM!!! Oh, posting kimchi next? I love kimchi! But too lazy to make them so always buy instead from the Korean supermarket. haha!!
oh yes!! Petai too! Yum…we always have endless stock of kimchi…got chance give you some. But mine is extra spicy for most people.