What is Sambal?
Sambal is a spicy paste or hot sauce made from chilies, shrimp, onion, citrus and additional additives and seasonings. It is red and thick, some are a bit more watery. Often this item is full of hot chili seeds. The flavors are spicy, tangy and umami. It is used as condiment to flavor dishes and as a topping to add flavor.
What does Sambal Taste Like?
Umami is one of five main tastes. It is savory with a depth of flavor. Umami is a taste in many foods, including meat, seafood, beans, and nuts. It is both naturally occurring and created through the specific use of ingredients to create a satisfying taste. Umami is characteristic of proteins and savory dishes.
Spicy is a flavor that brings heat and fire to food by creating a burning sensation in the mouth or sinuses. Spicy flavors come from hot peppers, horseradish, and wasabi. Spicy adds a kick and sometimes complexity to a dish and releases endorphins, creating a mildly addictive quality.
Ingredients
The onion is a bulb vegetable, meaning its bulb and not its leaves are eaten. Onions come in many varieties, including white, yellow and red. Shallots are small and mild onions. Vidalias are sweet, while red onions are strong and sharp. The onion is usually round and has a thin dry skin around its juicy layers. This skin depends in the color of the onion, as does the flesh. The flesh, or body of the onion is made of multiple round layers, that get smaller towards the center. The flavor of onions are sharp and sweet when raw, with an astringent taste. When cooked, these flavors mellow and the sweetness emerges. Onion are a very common flavoring and ingredient for many savory dishes.
Canola oil is a popular and readily available oil in America, due to its inexpensive price and neutral flavor. Canola oil comes from the rapeseed plant, the oil is pressed from the seeds and has a yellow color. It is a thin oil that is best for medium high heat, such as sautéing, though is commonly used for deep frying. Canola can be found in baked good, salad dressings, and a vast variety of food products.
Sugar comes from sugar cane and sugar beets. The sugar is extracted from the juice of both plants and refined into the granulated substance known as sugar. Sucrose, the sweet substance of sugar is a combination of glucose and fructose. White sugar is composed of tiny white, dry granules. The flavor is sweet and neutral. Brown sugar is brown and has more moisture, with a richer flavor that hints at molasses. Sugar is used in both sweet and savory foods.
Lime juice comes from the citrus fruit of the lime tree. Limes are round and roughly the size of a small plum, but can vary. Limes have a firm texture with green rind. The pale green flesh of the lime is firm, pulpy and juicy, much like a lemon, but harder. The juice is squeezed from the flesh and is a pale green color with a sour and refreshing taste and is used in drinks and food items, including sauces.
Additives are added to food items in small quantities to improve the flavor, change the texture, enhance appearance, or preserve the item. Additives are both natural and artificial. Natural additives have been used for a long time, while many artificial ones were discovered in the 19th century. There are numerous artificial additives including soy lecithin, guar gum, ascorbic acid and sodium nitrite.
There are many varieties of chili peppers. They are a small, hot pepper. The pepper is dried and ground into a fine powder, that varies in shades of red. Chili powder is a spice blend popular in American and Latin-American cooking. It is usually made from ancho chilies, paprika, oregano and cumin, other spices may be added. It is used in many protein dishes and has a spicy and herbal flavor.
Salt is a mineral composed mostly of sodium chloride. It is the main flavoring used in food and is naturally occurring in certain foods, such as cheese, beets, meat and celery, plus many others. Salt is white and has finer granules than sugar. Many commercial salts include iodide, while others exclude it. Most salts are white, while some are naturally pale pink with minerals. Salt brings out the flavor of something and can create a tangy mouthfeel, if used in excess.
