This is a very simple vegetable and fruit salad and as far back as I can remember, people in South-East Asia have been making these vegetable and fruit salads, sometimes using different ingredients. This salad should be made slightly in advance of being served with meals and kept chilled in the fridge for the flavours to blend together. It should be consumed within a couple of days or the vegetables and fruit will become soft and soggy. This cucumber and pineapple spicy salad is best served as a side dish to stews and soups.
1 cucumber, wash and slice lengthwise. Remove the soft centre that has seeds.
half of a pineapple, remove the hard skin and core.
1 small red onion of 5 shallots, remove skin and slice thinly
1/8 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon sambal blachan
Cut the pineapple and cucumber into small 1 cm pieces. Put into a mixing bowl. Add the salt, sliced onions and sambal blachan. Mix all together. Serve as a side dish with stews.
Sambal blachan Paste
6 red fresh chillies and 2 to 3 bird's eye chillies
1 tablespoon shrimp paste, toasted
3 limes, sliced in half
half teaspoon fine-grain sugar
Slice the chillies and grind to a fine paste (you can also pound chillies using a mortar and pestle). Add the shrimp paste and sugar and pound to a paste. Squeeze the lime juice and mix. Keep in a small jar.
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