Sambal Udang with Petai

Here it is... petai. You either love it or hate it. You either eat it totally or not at all. Petai - the mighty bright green coloured beans with a very peculiar smell. Westerners may be more familiar with the name "stinky beans" or "twisted cluster beans" as it really looks twisted, and to some - this bean stinks.

Photo courtesy of Asian Images

What I like best about it is it's small, cute shape of beans, with bright green colours and it is crunchy. Not peanut-crunchy but bean crunchy.

The best method of eating petai is to cook it with sambal. So here is my mum's recipe of a dish with prawns and petai.

Prawn sambal with petai

Ingredients
1 cup of petai beans
Some medium fresh prawns, cleaned and beheaded.
3 shallots, 2 garlic, 1 inch ginger (blended)
1 cup of blended fresh red chili (blended with some water)
1 stalk of lemongrass, crushed
2 tablespoon of tamarind juice
1/2 cup fresh coconut milk
1 teaspoon sugar
1 pinch salt
oil for cooking

Cooking it is very simple. So if you think sambals are difficult and tedious to cook, try this one!

1. Preheat the saucepan with oil, and when it is hot pour the blended ingredients, fry for 3 minutes until aromatic. Add lemongrass and the coconut milk.
2. Add prawns and stir a little, then pour in the tamarind juice. Bring to boil.
3. Add the petai beans, stirring occassionally for 5-10 mins until prawn is cooked.
4. Add in sugar and salt to taste, and serve hot.

If the sambal is rather watery, you may leave it to thicken over small heat a while longer.

Sambal udang petai is best served with nasi lemak, nasi lemuni or with plain white rice.

:: Here is a funny story of petai... ::

A boy once asked me "Who do you think I look like..."
I said "You look like... (long pause)... belacan!"
He got pissed and instantly called me "Petai".

For years we've been calling each other "Petai" and "Belacan" - I don't know why we do that, just for fun... but I know that we irritate each other with these nicknames! In case you're wondering, NO WAY we dont smell anything like belacan and petai....

Now, we have somehow stopped calling each other this - because we ended up falling in love with each other! :-) It's been an amazing, wonderful 2 years, and many many more to come.

What a story behind all the stinky bean!