Sambal Goreng Boontjes

Some dishes carry their passport in the title. Sambal goreng boontjes is one of them: Indonesian at the front, Dutch at the end, and completely at home on the Indo-Dutch rijsttafel, the rice table where a dozen little dishes teach one another manners. The name already tells you. Sambal is the chile paste, goreng means fried, and boontjes are little beans, the Dutch diminutive that makes even vegetables sound as if they have had their hair combed.

But let me tell you a secret. On the Dutch rijsttafel this is often treated as the modest green thing between richer bowls, yet it is doing serious work. The beans bring snap, the santen, coconut cream, brings roundness, the ketjap manis, sweet soy sauce, brings dark sweetness, and the fried sambal wakes the whole table. History and cookery, they cannot be separated: this is not a fashionable novelty, but one of the everyday dishes carried into Dutch kitchens through colonial Indonesia, postwar migration, and the beloved toko that now stocks half the Dutch pantry.

The method is hidden in the name, which is kind of a kindness. Sambal goreng means the chile paste must be fried first, in oil, until the raw edge of shallot, garlic, and chilli softens and the pan smells warm instead of sharp. Only then do you add santen and the beans. Boil everything together from the start and you get sauce. Fry first and you get character.

In July and August, Dutch sperziebonen, green beans, snap cleanly and need only a short braise. In winter, I prefer a good frozen fine bean to a tired import; the calendar has its pride, and so should we. Hou het altijd simpel, always keep it simple: fry the paste, melt the santen, let the beans finish in the sauce, and put the bowl on the table before anyone decides a vegetable must be obedient.