Steamed Shrimp in Chili Paste ( Pepes Udang )

Steamed shrimp in chili paste is indonesian dish , very simple and humble meal . You can replace the shrimp with tofu , or fish to make a good delicious yet quite simple meal . If you don’t have banana leaves on hand , not to worry , you can always use foil , in my opinion , foil is a lot better than banana leaves to work with , although .. banana leaves is the one that they use to wrap this and then steam and grill them . It is best served with white jasmine rice . Delicious !!

Pepes udang is wrapped in banana leaves or like i said you can always use foil too . This reminds me of some american french dish where you wrap the fish with a wax / parchment paper , Fish en Pappilote . But instead of parchment , we wrapped it with banana leaves , the traditional way 🙂

Make sure that you have either a big size of mortar pestle or food processor . I don’t own pestle , so my food processor has been working pretty hard lately to make all these spices into a very smooth paste , which is usually a must in Indonesian dish .

Direction : 

15 small / medium shallots

8 garlic

bunch of bird eye chili pepper , esp. if you like it very spicy

indonesian large pepper , not bell pepper , but if you can’t find , you can use hot korean red pepper , or bell pepper too

1 inch of ginger

1 inch of turmeric

2 stalks of lemon grass

2 lbs of shrimp , wash and clean

banana leaves or foil for wrapping

toothpick to secure the package

1. Throw all spices except lemon grass and the shrimp itself in food processor , until it becomes a very smooth paste about couple minutes , don’t forget to add your seasoning , salt , pepper and sugar , to your preference .

2. Wash and clean , peel and deveined shrimpe , then add into the paste and mix it by hand to cover the shrimps with the paste .

3. On a clean banana leaves , add about 2-3 tbsp. of the mixture along with lemon grass and then wrap and secure with toothpick . Steam for 30 minutes , then grill it for 10 minutes .