Bird's eye chili in the mortar & pestle
5 recipes
There are 5 recipes here that use Bird's eye chili, and every one of them is scored against what is actually in your fridge before it is shown. The quickest is Lombok-Style Water Spinach at 20 minutes; the longest, Simple Gado-Gado, takes 35. 1 of them finish in twenty minutes or less, which is usually what matters on a weeknight.
None of these need an oven, an air fryer, or a microwave — a stove and a pan is enough. 2 are vegetarian. 5 are properly spicy.
Bird's eye chili turns up most often alongside Palm sugar, Tomato, Catfish and Red chili — if you have one or two of those as well, more of this list becomes cookable tonight rather than after a shopping trip. Add what you have to your fridge and the recipes reorder themselves around it, with anything missing collected into a shopping list.
Fried Catfish with Shrimp Paste Sambal
The sambal is pounded, not blended. It comes out coarse, and that is exactly right.
⏱ 30 min🍽 3 servingsEasy
Fried Catfish with Tomato Sambal
The sambal is fried, not raw — that is what makes it keep until tomorrow and taste deeper.
⏱ 30 min🍽 3 servingsEasy
Peanut Sauce
The peanuts are dry-toasted, not fried. Toasting gives a roasted aroma that hot oil cannot imitate.
⏱ 25 min🍽 6 servingsEasy
Simple Gado-Gado
Boil the vegetables separately, not together. Each has its own timing, and combining them gets all of them wrong.
⏱ 35 min🍽 4 servingsMedium
Lombok-Style Water Spinach
The greens are boiled, not fried, then topped with raw tomato sambal. Two textures that a stir-fry never gives you.
⏱ 20 min🍽 3 servingsEasy