Put the kettle on with about 500ml water (2 cups).Using a pair of scissors, cut the dried chillies into 2-3 pieces straight into a bowl.
Pour the hot water onto the cut chillies, leaving a little for the tamarind below. Cover with a side plate and leave to soak for 15 minutes, while you get everything else ready.Traditionally, the dried shrimp would also be soaked now but I no longer bother soaking dried shrimp unless I'm using them without cooking.
Prep Work - Tamarind
Place the tamarind pulp into a small bowl and pour the hot water over it, ensuring that it's covered. Leave it aside until you need it during cooking.
When it's time to use it, all we're going to do is mash the now soft pulp with our fingers, grab the pulp and seeds and throw them away.Then we'll just pour the tamarind juice over the sambal. You could strain it, but it has to be a medium mesh strainer, so you don't miss out on all the good stuff.Click here to read up on how to use tamarind.
Tip the larger dried shrimp into a food chopper and chop until fine. It will resemble floss. Set aside until later.You can also do this with a pestle and mortar, giving you a coarser end result, which is perfect for sambal hae bee.
Drain the soaking dried chillies and give them a quick rinse, shaking out the seeds if you want to.Tip the drained chillies into a blender.
Add the onions, garlic, birds eye chillies, lemongrass, shrimp paste and turmeric to the blender. Pour in the water and blend everything until you get a fine paste. Don't worry too much about the odd piece of unblended chilli.Use a little more water if you need it.
Cooking Sambal Hae Bee
If using LinsFood's Red Chilli Paste, this is the step to join in.Heat the oil in a wok or saucepan on medium heat and fry the blended red chilli paste for 10 minutes, stirring from time to time. Reduce the heat to medium-low after 2 minutes.It's going to splutter. Lowering the heat will reduce this.
Tip in both the dried shrimp, sugar and salt and stir well to mix.If you have LinsFood's Red Chilli Paste handy, you can use it and start here. About 1 measuring cup's worth will work.
Immediately, add the tamarind juice from earlier and lime leaves if using. Use a medium mesh strainer to strain the tamarind juice straight into your wok, if you prefer.Mix thoroughly. Reduce the heat to low and cook until your sambal hae bee is a fairly dry mix. Keep stirring from time to time, especially the drier it gets.This step could take 10 minutes or it could take 30, depending on how much water you added while blending your chillies earlier. And also on how dry you want your sambal to be.
Taste your hae bee hiam and add more salt if you want, and even a little more sugar, if necessary. You'll find that because of the huge amount of dried shrimp, your sambal has a naturally sweet taste anyway, so go easy on the sugar.Turn the heat off and squeeze the lime juice all over and mix well.
Transfer your sambal to a clean jar. Leave it to cool completely, then store in the fridge. Use within 2 weeks.I usually just store it in an airtight container, glass or plastic, it doesn't matter. This is because mine doesn't last more than a week in the fridge.