Ikan Patin Masak Habang

As tradition built it

Serves 4. About 45 minutes.

Ingredients

• 600g patin (catfish), cut into steaks
• 6 dried red chillies, soaked
• 4 shallots
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 thumb ginger
• 1 stick cinnamon
• 1 tsp belacan
• 1 thumb kencur (lesser galangal)
• 1 to 2 tbsp palm sugar
• 200ml coconut milk
• to taste tamarind water, bay leaf, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaf, to taste
• to taste lime juice, sweet basil, to finish

Method

1. Grind the soaked chillies, shallots, garlic, ginger, cinnamon, belacan and kencur to a smooth paste.
2. Fry the paste in oil until dark red and fragrant, the oil separating at the edges.
3. Add the palm sugar, coconut milk, tamarind water, bay leaf, lemongrass and kaffir lime leaf; simmer.
4. Add the catfish steaks, simmer gently until just cooked through.
5. Finish with lime juice and torn sweet basil.

What a modern chef changes

The paste's sugar and dried-chilli character respected rather than corrected toward a generic sambal, and a note on where this dish sits socially.

Rung 6

Method

1. Use dried, not fresh, red chillies for the paste. This is what gives bumbu habang its dark, deep red colour and distinguishes it from balado and other fresh-chilli-forward Indonesian pastes; substituting fresh chillies changes the dish's actual identity, not just its heat level.
2. Do not under-sugar the paste out of instinct. The generous sugar content is structural to this specific paste's sweet-savoury profile, not a modern addition to be trimmed back for a British palate expecting pure heat.
3. Remember this dish was ceremonial food before it was everyday food. Serve it, as the sultanate-era version would have been served, alongside nasi kuning, turmeric yellow rice, rather than plain rice, if the occasion warrants the fuller presentation.