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Fermentation Atlas

Sauces and condiments from Indonesia, Malaysia

Fermented sambal (sambal fermentasi) and sambal tempoyaksambal fermentasi

Fermented sambal is an Indonesian chilli paste whose chillies first sit sealed in a light salt and sugar brine before they are ground and cooked. In one tested recipe red and green chillies ferment for 24 hours in 2–2.5 % salt, then are blanched, ground with shallot and garlic, cooked and jarred. Sambal tempoyak is made with tempoyak, durian flesh fermented by lactic bacteria. Made in 6 steps over 25 h. The longest step, ferment the chillies in salt and sugar brine, takes 24 h (Alpindo A. 2018). Salt is 2–2.5 % (Alpindo A. 2018). Lactic acid bacteria growing in the chilli brine and Fructobacillus durionis, Leuconostoc mesenteroides and Lactobacillus plantarum do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step24 hReported[alpindo2018]Ferment the chillies in salt and sugar brine
Temperature80 °CReported[alpindo2018]Season and blanch
Salt2–2.5 %Reported[alpindo2018]Ferment the chillies in salt and sugar brine

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceAmounts are from a tested lab recipe (Alpindo 2018) for 450 g of fermented chillies; the percentages after fermenting are of that 450 g. Village sambal has no fixed amounts.
250 gRed curly chillies (cabe merah keriting)[alpindo2018]
200 gGreen chillies[alpindo2018]
2 % or 2.5 %Salt, dissolved in water, for the ferment[alpindo2018]
0.5 %Sugar, dissolved in the same brine[alpindo2018]
20 %Shallot, added after fermenting[alpindo2018]
10 %Garlic, added after fermenting[alpindo2018]
5 % salt and 13 % sugarSalt and sugar for seasoning[alpindo2018]
0 %, 0.5 % or 1 %CMC (carboxymethylcellulose) as a thickener · Optional; the study tested all three levels[alpindo2018]
Starterspontaneous

Total time across the recorded steps: 25 h

Start
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What changes: Starting material: fresh red and green chillies

Step 1 of 6
Wash the chillies
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria

Output: clean red and green chillies.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

What makes this one different

In fermented sambal the whole chillies sit sealed for a day in a light 2–2.5 % salt and sugar brine before they are ground, so lactic bacteria can sour them first; the paste is then cooked and sterilised in jars. Sambal tempoyak gets its sourness from fermented durian instead of from the chillies.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Sambal tempoyakChillies pounded with tempoyak, durian flesh fermented by Fructobacillus durionis, Leuconostoc and Lactobacillus plantarum.

Safety

The finished sambal in the study was cooked and its jars sterilised for 30 minutes, and its total plate count stayed within the 1 × 10^4 cfu/g limit of the Indonesian national standard (SNI 2012) quoted in the study. Pathogens added to tempoyak survived 8–12 days, so tempoyak for sambal needs clean handling.

Hazards the sources name: Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes and Staphylococcus aureus (not found in tempoyak, but survived 8–12 days when added).

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Sambal is a chilli paste with many local forms; fermenting the chillies is one way to keep it and change its taste (Alpindo 2018).

  1. [alpindo2018] Alpindo A. 2018, Peningkatan kualitas sambal fermentasi melalui penambahan garam dan bahan penstabil (Improving the quality of fermented sambal by adding salt and a stabiliser), AGRITEPA Jurnal Ilmu dan Teknologi Pertanian 3(2):1–10, doi:10.37676/agritepa.v3i2.529paper
  2. [chuah2016] Chuah L.O., Shamila-Syuhada A.K., Liong M.T., Rosma A., Thong K.L., Rusul G. 2016, Physio-chemical, microbiological properties of tempoyak and molecular characterisation of lactic acid bacteria isolated from tempoyak, Food Microbiology 58:95–104, doi:10.1016/j.fm.2016.04.002paper