Indonesian Chili Eggs: Sambal Telur

This is easy to make, and if you'd prefer, you don't have to fry the peeled hardboiled eggs. They can be served with rice or try them chilled and served as a salad. I assume most people outside Indonesia do not have kaffir lime leaves, so you can just use lime zest, but if you want to try using the leaves, contact your herb and spice outlets, and the leaves are definitely available online.

Ingredients: 

6 eggs, hardboiled and then shells removed

1/3 cup chopped onion

2 kaffir lime leaves (or 1 teaspoon lime zest)

6 or 8 tablespoons sambal oelek (Indonesian style hot ground chili paste)

2 tablespoons oil

In a skillet, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the whole peeled hardboiled eggs and keep turning the eggs until they get a little color on them (they will kind of blister), then remove them to a plate with a paper towel. To the same skillet with the oil, add the chopped onion and saute until it softens. As the onion softens, keep stirring to prevent browning and reduce the heat to low. When the onion is soft, add the sambal oelek and stir to mix, then add the kaffir leaves or lime zest and keep stirring (you don't have to stir continuously, but frequently). When the sambal begins to reduce and thicken, add the eggs back to the skillet to warm again in the sauce. Slice the eggs lengthwise, serve with some of the sauce over each serving. 

 

 

WORD HISTORY: 

Stir-This word is actually related to "storm," and it goes back to Indo European "stur," which had the notion of "move, twirl, whirl, turn." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "storjanan," with the same basic meanings, but with figurative meanings of "destroy, disrupt." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "styrian," meaning "incite, agitate, stir." This then became "stiren," before the modern version, and the meanings have remained the same, with the primary emphasis on the meaning "mix together by using a spoon or utensil" (that is, "making it whirl"), but the meanings "incite, agitate," are still very much in use, keeping it close to some of its Germanic cousins which mean "disrupt." The other Germanic languages have: German and Low German Saxon "stören" (bother, disturb), ^ Dutch "storen" (disturb, bother), Danish "styrre" (disturb, disrupt), Norwegian "styrre" (mix), Swedish "störa" (disrupt, disturb). I could not find a form in modern Icelandic, nor in West Frisian. The noun form is from the same Germanic source, but it likely came into use in English in the latter 1300s from Old Norse, which had the noun "styrr," meaning "tumult, commotion, disruption."

^ German also has the prefixed form "zerstören," which means "to destroy," going back to the original figurative Germanic meaning.