Eggs with Petis – Eggs with Shrimp Coconut Sauce

These eggs with petis are delightfully creamy and full of umami flavor. The petis gives this dish umami and that fits well with the coconut milk.

Umami could be described as “savory” and is one of the five basic flavors besides sweet, sour, bitter and salty.

Petis Udang

Petis is an Indonesian super thick and sticky sauce made of shrimps. It is not like trassi, which are fermented shrimps. Petis is more sweet and sticky.

To make this dish a success, a visit to an Asian food store is a good idea. The salam leaf (Asian bay leaf), the petis udang and the Javanese sugar can be purchased there. For lemongrass (sereh), the santen (coconut cream) and trassi – fermented shrimp paste- I go to the supermarket. But that is different in every country.

You can replace the santen with a thick block of coconut cream. One liter of coconut milk is the equivalent as one block of santen. So for this dish I use about 125 ml (1/8) of coconut milk.

Samphire

I add a handful of samphire as well.  This dune plant is deliciously crunchy. Do not use too much because it is pretty salty. I buy samphire in the supermarket or at my fishmonger. I can keep it in my fridge for at least a week.

Jeruk Purut fruits

At the Asian store I saw two jeruk fruits; these are the fruits of the jeruk plant (kaffir lime). They are smaller and stronger in flavor than regular lemons. I add some of the juice to my eggs with petis just before serving.

A regular lime or lemon will sufice to by the way. Do not add the fruits as a whole to the dish. It will make it bitter.

Chili

Do you want to make your chili peppers less hot? Then do not only remove the seeds but also the part where the seeds are attached to.

Eggs with Petis

This dish is enough for 4 people and ready in 30 minutes.

---

Eggs with Petis #320 translated from Beb Vuyk’s Great Indonesian Cookbook, page 270.

Ingredients

• 4 eggs
• 1/4 liters of water
• 1/8 block santen (coconut cream)
• 2 tablespoons of oil

Herbs

• 2 tablespoons of chopped onions
• 2 chopped cloves of garlic
• 1 teaspoon of sambal terasi 
• 1 teaspoon of laos (galangal)
• 1 teaspoon of Javanese sugar
• 1 tablespoon petis udang
• 1 stalk sereh
• 2 salam leaves (Asian bay leaves)
• juice of 1/2 a lemon

1. Boil the eggs for 3,5 minutes and peel them.
2. Rub onions, garlic, sambal, laos, sugar and petis together to make a paste.
3. Sauté this mixture until the onions are yellow.
4. Dissolve the santen in a little water and add it to the herbs.
5. Let the sauce come to a boil with the sereh and the salam leaves and then the eggs.
6. Stew all this together for about 10 minutes and finish the dish with lemon juice.

---

I boil the eggs for 3,5 minutes and peel them.

Then I cut the onions, garlic and chili peppers into large pieces and add this with the galangal, Javanese sugar, petis and the trassi in the blender (or in my case: emersion blender).

I warm up 2 tablespoons of oil in the pan and sitr-fry the spice mix with the lemon stalk, until the onions turn yellow.

Then I pour in the coconut milk and the water and add the salam leaves. I bring it to the boil and gently place the eggs in this sauce. I let this simmer for about 8 minutes. The sauce will thicken and stick to the sauce nicely.

I distribute some samphire on top and sprinkle the juice of the jeruk (or ordinary lemon) over it.

The petis gives this dish such a deep flavor, but it stays fresh because of the lemongrass and lemon. These eggs with petis sauce is delicious over some white rice with with serundeng sprinkled over it.

A crunchy vegetable dish fits well with this eggs with petis like sambal goreng of snow peas for example.  This dish turns my home into spring!

Check out more Indonesian egg dishes? Here a link.
Overview of all Indonesian salads and vegetable dishes? Here a link.