Roti King’s Spicy Sambal Croissant

Sambal croissants? You heard us. A spicy, fishy, absolutely delightful fusion of Malaysian and European flavours from Sugen Gopal.

5 minutes cook

Serves 1

Hugh Woodward

Ingredients

Nasi lemak croissant:

1 plain croissant

2 tbspsambol ikan bellis

2thick slices cucumber

Sambal:

60gdried anchovies

150mlvegetable oil

200gbase sambal

300mljust boiled water

1 large onion, sliced

5gshrimp paste

1 tsptamarind

50mljust boiled water

1 tspsugar

1 1/2 tsp sugar

Roti King founder Sugen Gopal shares his favourite snack recipe with Twisted, as part of our running series Chefs Making Snacks. This sambal croissant recipe is from his new book Roti King: Classic and Modern Malaysian Street Food, and came about after his kids asked for a snack one day and he discovered he had some leftover anchovy sambal in the fridge. Check out Sugen’s book for loads more delicious South Asian inspired recipes like this - it’s a corker.

Method

Fry the dried anchovies in oil over a low heat for 2-3 minutes until golden and crispy, then remove with a slotted spoon and set aside on kitchen paper, leaving the oil in the pan.

Place a bowl over a set of scales and measure out the base sambal and the just-boiled water, then mix these together to make a paste.

Add the onions to the pan of oil, turn up the heat to high and fry until browned, about 3 minutes. Turn the heat down to low, add the sambal paste to the pan with the onions, along with another 50ml (1½fl oz) water, the shrimp paste and the tamarind-water. Stir through, add sugar and salt and cook for 10-15 minutes.

Slice the croissant in half. Heat a frying pan or griddle over a medium heat and toast the croissant, then remove it from the pan. Spread the sambal on the base. Place the cucumber slices on top and sandwich together with the top of the croissant.