Chef Joost
Acar Ketimun (Indo-Dutch Cucumber Pickle)
Acar means pickle, ketimun means cucumber, and this little bowl of sweet vinegar, chilli, and crunch is the cool note that lets an Indo-Dutch rijsttafel keep its balance.
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Sambal Goreng Hati
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The name says exactly what the dish is: liver carried through fried chili paste and coconut milk, a small fierce plate from the Indo-Dutch rijsttafel.
Side Dishes
Dutch
Dinner Party
Special Occasion
Celebration
25 min
Active Time
30 min cook•55 min total
Yield4 to 6 servings as a side dish
During my manuscript year in Fez I learned a useful scholarly lesson in a kitchen, not an archive: spices do not travel as ideas. They travel in hands, in ships, in marriages, in notebooks, and sometimes in the stubborn memory of a family that has crossed an ocean. That is the doorway for sambal goreng hati, not a Dutch polder doorway, but an Indisch one, where the Dutch table learned to make room for heat, coconut, palm sugar, and the deep iron taste of liver.
The name already tells you nearly the whole method. Sambal is the chili mixture, goreng means fried, hati is liver. In this family of dishes, the paste is fried first until it darkens and smells rounded rather than raw, then loosened with santen, coconut milk, until it becomes a sauce that clings. But let me tell you a secret: the liver is not the difficult part. The difficult part is stopping yourself from bullying it. Liver wants a hot pan, a short visit, and then the shelter of the sauce. Cook it too long and it becomes punishment food, for obvious reasons.
This is an Indo-Dutch celebration dish, the kind that sits beside rice, atjar, seroendeng, eggs, beans, and other small plates in a rijsttafel, rice table. I prefer to keep it a bit more relaxed, in the Dutch way: one good pan, a paste made properly fragrant, and liver browned just enough to stay tender. History and cookery, they cannot be separated, but supper still has to arrive on time.
Sambal goreng hati entered Dutch home cooking through the Indisch, Indo-Dutch, table shaped by colonial Indonesia and carried to the Netherlands by repatriated families after Indonesian independence in 1945. Beb Vuyk, the Dutch-Indonesian writer and cook, fixed many of these dishes for Dutch readers in her Groot Indonesisch Kookboek, first published in 1973, which became a household reference rather than a restaurant manual. The dish belongs to the larger sambal goreng family: ingredients briefly fried in a chili spice paste, then simmered with santen, coconut milk, until the sauce turns glossy and concentrated.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
beef liver or chicken livers
Quantity
500g
trimmed
tamarind paste
Quantity
1 tablespoon
fine salt
Quantity
1 teaspoon
divided
neutral oil
Quantity
3 tablespoons
shallots
Quantity
6
finely chopped
garlic cloves
Quantity
3
finely chopped
red chilies
Quantity
3
deseeded for gentler heat and chopped
sambal oelek
Quantity
2 teaspoons
or more to taste
candlenuts or macadamia nuts
Quantity
2 candlenuts or 20g macadamia nuts
finely ground
fresh ginger
Quantity
2cm
grated
fresh galangal
Quantity
2cm
sliced or bruised
salam leaves or bay leaf
Quantity
2 salam leaves or 1 bay leaf
lemongrass
Quantity
1 stalk
bruised
coconut milk (santen)
Quantity
250ml
palm sugar or dark brown sugar
Quantity
1 tablespoon
sweet soy sauce (ketjap manis)
Quantity
1 teaspoon
lime juice
Quantity
1 tablespoon
or to taste
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| beef liver or chicken liverstrimmed | 500g |
| tamarind paste | 1 tablespoon |
| fine saltdivided | 1 teaspoon |
| neutral oil | 3 tablespoons |
| shallotsfinely chopped | 6 |
| garlic clovesfinely chopped | 3 |
| red chiliesdeseeded for gentler heat and chopped | 3 |
| sambal oelekor more to taste | 2 teaspoons |
| candlenuts or macadamia nutsfinely ground | 2 candlenuts or 20g macadamia nuts |
| fresh gingergrated | 2cm |
| fresh galangalsliced or bruised | 2cm |
| salam leaves or bay leaf | 2 salam leaves or 1 bay leaf |
| lemongrassbruised | 1 stalk |
| coconut milk (santen) | 250ml |
| palm sugar or dark brown sugar | 1 tablespoon |
| sweet soy sauce (ketjap manis) | 1 teaspoon |
| lime juiceor to taste | 1 tablespoon |
Equipment Needed
- •Wide heavy frying pan or saute pan
- •Sharp trimming knife
- •Mortar and pestle or small food processor
Instructions
- 1
Trim the liver
Trim away any sinew or greenish spots from the liver. Cut beef liver into bite-sized pieces about two centimetres thick, or halve chicken livers where they are large. Toss with the tamarind paste and half the salt, then leave for fifteen minutes. The tamarind does two quiet jobs: it softens the iron edge and gives the sauce a small sourness that keeps all that coconut from becoming heavy.
- 2
Brown it quickly
Pat the liver dry. Heat one tablespoon of oil in a wide frying pan over medium-high heat and brown the liver in a single layer, about one minute per side for chicken liver and a little longer for beef. You are not cooking it through yet. You are giving it colour, then getting it out before it tightens. Lift it to a plate and keep the juices.
- 3
Fry the paste
Lower the heat to medium and add the remaining oil. Fry the shallots, garlic, chopped chilies, sambal oelek, ground candlenuts, ginger, galangal, salam leaves, and lemongrass for eight to ten minutes, stirring often, until the paste darkens, the oil begins to separate at the edges, and the raw sharpness of the chili has turned warm and rounded. This is the step that makes the dish taste cooked rather than merely hot.
Candlenuts must be cooked thoroughly. If you cannot find them, macadamia nuts give the same body without fuss, and no guest at the table needs to be told unless they ask. - 4
Make the sauce
Pour in the coconut milk and scrape the pan so the fried paste dissolves into it. Add the palm sugar, ketjap manis, and remaining salt. Simmer gently for ten to twelve minutes, stirring now and then, until the sauce has thickened to a glossy reddish brown and coats the back of a spoon. Keep the heat modest; santen is generous, but it dislikes being shouted at.
- 5
Return the liver
Return the liver and its resting juices to the pan. Simmer gently for three to five minutes, just until the pieces are cooked through and still tender inside. Cut one open if you need proof. Beef liver should be faintly pink at the centre if you like it soft; chicken liver should be cooked through but not grey and grainy. Remove the lemongrass, galangal, and salam leaves before serving.
- 6
Balance and serve
Taste the sauce. Add lime juice until the sweetness, heat, salt, and coconut sit in one line. Serve in a small bowl beside plain white rice, atjar, or green beans. This is a side dish with a loud voice, so give it quiet neighbours.
Chef Tips
- •Use the freshest liver you can buy, and cook it the day you bring it home. Fresh liver smells clean and faintly sweet, never sour or metallic in the bad sense.
- •If serving this at a dinner party, make the sauce ahead and brown the liver close to serving. Liver waits badly, sauce waits beautifully. That is the whole strategy.
- •For a gentler table, deseed the fresh chilies and keep the sambal oelek modest. Pittig means properly spicy, not a dare made at someone else's expense.
- •Chicken livers give a softer, silkier dish; beef liver gives a deeper, more old-fashioned iron note. Both belong, but do not mix them in the same pan because they cook at different speeds.
- •Serve with plain rice, not seasoned rice. The sauce is already doing enough talking.
Advance Preparation
- •The spice paste can be chopped or ground up to one day ahead and kept covered in the refrigerator.
- •The sauce can be cooked up to two days ahead without the liver; reheat gently, then brown and add the liver just before serving.
- •Leftovers keep one day refrigerated, but reheat very gently and stop as soon as the sauce loosens, since liver toughens with repeated heating.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 185g)
Calories
355 calories
Total Fat
23 g
Saturated Fat
11 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
11 g
Cholesterol
335 mg
Sodium
550 mg
Total Carbohydrates
15 g
Dietary Fiber
2 g
Sugars
6 g
Protein
22 g
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