Sambal Sotong (Squid in chili paste)

This sambal sotong (squid in chili paste) dish is a spice sensation - succulent squid with a hot and zingy  sauce of dried chilies, with a subtle sour sharpness coming from the tamarind and tomatoes. In this particular recipe we have used leftover chili paste from another dish, but hopefully i will post one soon with instructions on how to make the paste from scratch.

If, like me, you cooked char kuey teow yesterday according to the proportions recommended by the recipe by Rasa Malaysia, you would be left 2-3 teaspoonsful of leftover chili paste. The question is, what to do with it? It seems a bit wasteful to throw it ALL away. A few options spring to mind - use it up a teaspoon at a time with a dash of lime juice squeezed on top, or make a sambal dish.

Sambal Sotong (Squid in chili paste), serves 2

Ingredients

2 tomatoes, quartered

1 large onion, sliced

1 tbsp leftover chili paste 

200 g squid, cleaned 

1 tbsp tamarind paste, soaked in 200 ml of water

Salt to taste (I'd say slightly less than 1/2 tsp is a good starting point)

Sugar, preferably palm or brown, to taste (1 tsp)

To blend:

2 shallots

2 small cloves of garlic (or one really big one)

4 candlenuts (buah keras), or macadamia nuts as a substitute

1 tbsp oil

Blitz the above ingredients in a blender until it forms a nice yellow paste. (If you are worried about damaging the blade of your blender, I'd recommend putting the nuts in a food freezer bag and bashing it into smaller bits before pouring into the blender).

Heat a small frying pan with about 1 tbsp of oil (or more, if it's not a non-stick pan), and saute the sauce for a few minutes, or until the oil splits from the paste, taking care not to burn it. Add the leftover chili paste. Add about 100 ml of water to prevent the paste from drying out. Squeeze the tamarind paste to extract the juice, and pour the tamarind juice in to taste. Add the quartered tomatoes with about 100 ml more water, and allow it to simmer until the tomatoes turn mushy. (Keep adding water to maintain a nice smooth consistency)

Stir in the onions, and cook until al dente. Lastly, stir in the squid, and leave it in there for a minute or so to cook (do not overcook! In fact best to leave it slightly undercooked). Turn the heat off and allow it to rest for about 5-10 minutes (the residual heat will continue cooking the squid while the squid absorbs the sambal flavour). Serve warm with rice.

Some comments 
Feel free to add more chili paste than 1 tbsp if you feel the sambal looks anaemic, but be warned! I made the mistake of throwing ALL my leftover paste in there (which was about 3 tbsps?) and I ended up having to have a sip of yogurt for every mouthful of rice+sambal.
If you really want to you can flash fry the squid separately to brown it a little before putting it in the sambal, but I'm a mummy in a hurry and thus didn't bother :P
Let me know how you like it!