44 Sambal Goreng Tomato – tomato dish with chili salsa

I’m looking for a sweet and healthy vegetable dish to serve alongside my beef dish. We all love tomatoes, so this sambal goreng tomato with coconut milk sounds delicious.

I make sambal trassi (chili salsa with shrimp paste) myself, because it’s so easy. Click for the sambal trassi recipe here. If you do not have Javanese sugar (gula jawa) you can use regular sugar or some brown sugar.

This sambal goreng tomato is enough for 3-4 people as a side dish and is ready in 20 minutes.

Sambal Goreng Tomato translated from Beb Vuyk’s Groot Indonesisch kookboek, page 74.

Ingredients

1/4 kg of tomatoes
3 tablespoons of chopped onions
1 clove of sliced ​​garlic
1 teaspoon sambal terasi (or 1 teaspoon sambal oelek and 1/2 teaspoon terasi -shrimp paste)
1 teaspoon of galangal
2 teaspoons of Javanese sugar
1 stalk of sereh (lemon grass)
1 salam leaf (Asian bay leaf)
1/8 block of santen (coconut cream)
2 tablespoons of oil
some salt

Wash the tomatoes and cut them into quarters or sixths. Make this sambal goreng as sambal goreng for cabbage. Note that there is a bit more sugar in this recipe for sambal goreng tomaat. Cook them as short as possible, the tomatoes may not cook to mush.

The recipe for sambal goreng cabbage (#40) says:

Slice the cabbage very finely and wash it. Rub onions, garlic, chilli salsa and galangal with the sugar and salt to a paste. If you use sambal oelek add terasi too. Fry everything in the oil until the onions are yellow. Add the cabbage and sauté for a few minutes until they are tender. Then add the block of santen and the lemongrass and salam leave. If the mass is very dry add a little bit of water. Let the dish simmer until the oil from the santen floats to the surface, after about 5 or 6 minutes. The cabbage should not be completely cooked. Before serving remove the lemongrass and the salam leaf.

Because the tomatoes may not be cooked to a pulp the powdered herbs work great. The tomatoes do not have much time to suck up all the flavors of the herbs when you use fresh ones.

I use home made sambal trassi that I’ve frozen in ice cubes.  Each block contains about 2 teaspoons of chili salsa. I love this food hack. I get those from pinterest. Love it.

I rub onions, garlic, the sambal trassi and galangal with the sugar and salt together. I use a teaspoon of salt (I have about 300 grams of tomatoes).

I fry the paste until the onions are yellow. Then I add a 1/2 a cup of water to the onions. When it boils I add the block of santen and the lemongrass and the salam leaf. Salam is Asian bay leaf.

Santen is creamed coconut. I buy it in blocks at my local Asian store (It’s made by adding hot water to grated coconut and then squeeze it until fluids run out). If you cannot buy santen you can also use coconut milk, about 1/2 cup, and leave the 1/2 cup of water out.

When the santen has melted I add the tomatoes.  I let them simmer for a minute because Beb warns not to overcook the tomatoes. Then I turn off the heat and scoop my sambal goreng tomato into a nice serving dish to cool. The tomatoes become even more tender while cooling down.

This sambal goreng tomato is a healthy, delicious, fresh dish. The coconut binds all the lovely flavors of the garlic and galangal together. I leave my lemon stalk in the serving dish because I think it looks great and the lemongrass still gives off its lovely acidic flavor.

I eat my tomato sambal goreng with a spicy beef dish and white rice.