Sambal Sotong That Never Turns Rubbery

Squid has one rule: cook it fast, under two minutes, or cook it slow, past thirty. Everything in between is rubber. Sambal sotong usually goes wrong because the squid sits in the sauce while the sauce cooks down. This method keeps the two apart: blanch the sotong for forty seconds, cook the sambal on its own until the oil splits, then marry them for one minute at the end.

The fast-or-slow rule

Squid flesh tightens almost the moment it hits heat, which is why a quick blanch leaves it tender: you get out before the clench sets in. Keep it on the fire past that point and it seizes into rubber. Hold it there far longer, thirty minutes and more in a wet braise, and it slowly relaxes soft again. Fast lands tender. Slow lands tender. The middle never does. Size shifts the numbers a little, big thick tubes want closer to a full minute in the blanch, but it never changes the rule.

This recipe is built on the fast side. The slow side is kept as the safety net at the bottom of the page, for the day the phone rings mid-cook.

Prep the frozen sotong

1. Thaw sealed in the chiller overnight, or in its bag in ice water if you are cooking tonight.¹
2. Whole squid: pull the head and innards out in one motion, remove the clear quill from inside the tube, and peel off the spotted skin if you prefer the flesh white. Cleaned frozen sotong skips all of this, which is most of the argument for buying it cleaned.
3. Cut the tubes into thick rings, or open them flat and score the inside in a fine crosshatch before cutting into pieces. Scored pieces curl into little pinecones that trap sambal in the cuts.
4. Dry everything well with paper towels. Water on the squid becomes water in your sambal, and watery sambal is a different failure you do not need.

The sambal, from scratch

For 600g of sotong. Soak twenty dried chillies in hot water until soft, snip them open and shake out the seeds if you want less fire. Blend them with eight shallots, four cloves of garlic, two candlenuts if you have them, and 15g of belacan toasted in a dry pan until crumbly and fragrant. A splash of the chilli soaking water gets the blender moving.

1. Fry the blended paste in six tablespoons of oil over medium heat, stirring, for ten to fifteen minutes. It is ready when the oil seeps back out around the edges. Cooks call it pecah minyak, the oil breaks. Before that point the sambal tastes raw and harsh, so do not shortcut this stage.
2. Season with two tablespoons of tamarind water, two teaspoons of sugar and salt to taste. It should lead sweet and hot with a sour tail.
3. Add one large onion cut into petals and fry for a minute, keeping some crunch.

The shortcut, when there is no time to blend: use four heaped tablespoons of store-bought sambal or chilli paste, and mash half a teaspoon of toasted belacan into it as it fries. The belacan is what makes a jarred paste taste like a stall’s. Fry it the same way, until the oil comes back out.

One more sambal note: the recipe scales. Double everything, fry it the same way, and keep the extra in a clean jar in the fridge. With cooked sambal on hand, this dish becomes a ten-minute cook from thawed squid: blanch, toss, plate. That is faster than delivery.

The cook, on the clock

1. Boil a pot of water. Blanch the squid for forty seconds, until it just turns opaque and starts to curl. Drain hard and shake it dry.
2. Get the finished sambal hot in the wok.
3. Squid in. Toss for one minute, no more, until every piece is coated and heated through.
4. Off the fire. A squeeze of lime over the plate lifts the whole thing.

Serve it with plain rice or as the sambal centre of a nasi lemak spread. The sauce carries the meal, so make more sambal than you think you need. It keeps in the fridge for a week and improves by day two.

If you overshot anyway

Went past the window and the squid bounced? Do not fight it in the pan, the middle zone only gets worse from here. Add half a cup of water, put the lid on, and let everything simmer low for thirty minutes. You have crossed over to the slow side of the rule, and the squid comes back tender in the sauce while the sambal gets deeper. Dinner is later. Dinner is also saved.

1. Singapore Food Agency, Guidelines on Thawing of Food (updated 27 Sep 2024), under INTRODUCTION: “Frozen food is recommended to be thawed in the chiller maintained at a temperature not below 0ºC and not above 4ºC, or by using a microwave oven. Frozen food can also be thawed by submerging in ice water, with frequent change of water and it must be sealed in a clean leak-proof package or container.” The three methods are set out on page 2 under the heading “Three Ways to Thaw Food Safely”. On portioning, under GUIDELINES 1(d): “Thaw only the amount of food you require for cooking.” sfa.gov.sg (PDF, page 1) ↩︎