Telur Balado: Indonesian Eggs In Spicy Chilli Sambal
Telur Balado
Telur Balado, or Balado Telur as it is also called, is a vegetarian dish made of hard-boiled eggs and spicy chilli sambal. It’s a dish that elevates the taste of humble eggs by pairing them with sambal sauce.
And the sauce gives an irresistible spiciness that makes bland boiled eggs an exquisite dish.
So you’ll get the creamy egg with the kick of spicy chillies. And when you eat it with hot plain white rice, you’ll need nothing else but peace and quiet. Because the dish is just too yummy.
The dish is originally from West Sumatra (Padangnese) and is now quite popular in Indonesia. You can always find it among the menu at Padangnese restaurants that exist almost all over the country. It shows that the demand is there. Therefore it’s on the menu for trade.
Like other Padangnese cuisines, this vegetarian dish has a similarity in spicy flavour. As Padangnese foods are well-known to be spicy and to use a lot of chillies. And the word Balado actually refers to dishes that are cooked in lots of chillies.
You can use your homemade Sambal Goreng Terasi for this dish if you already have it. But if you don’t, you can make the more simplified chilli sambal in this recipe.
Main Dish Or Side Dish
Honestly, it can be hard for me to decide whether this egg with chilli sambal is a main dish or a side dish.
Because you can have this telur Balado both as mains or sides. But you still have to enjoy it with rice-based carbs such as plain white rice, nasi uduk, nasi kuning, or lontong.
And if you want to have it as a side dish, you can serve it along with beef rendang, lontong sayur, etc. Just like many Padangnese do.
What You Need To Make Telur Balado
You don’t really need fancy ingredients for this dish. Apart from the eggs, you will only need fresh red chillies, tomatoes, onion, garlic, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, salt, sugar, water and cooking oil.
As for red chillies, you can combine the big red chillies with birds eyes’ red chillies (which are hotter). Or, you can just use the big ones only if you don’t want the dish to be too spicy. Because bird eye’s red chillies are hotter.
And the tomatoes are used to balance the heat of chillies. Therefore, if you think the number of chillies suggested in this recipe may be too much for you, you can replace some of them with more tomatoes. But make sure when you cook the sauce, you cook it until most of the liquid evaporates. Else, you will taste nothing but tomatoes.
Easy Way To Cook
This egg dish is darn easy to make. In essence, you just have to boil the egg and make the chilli sambal.
The hard-boiled eggs can be deep-fried before they mix in the red chilli sambal sauce.
So you will have a slightly crispy egg on the outside and a firm boiled egg on the inside. But, you can skip the deep frying. Especially if you like the smooth texture of hard-boiled eggs. Just make sure you boil the eggs until really firm and hard. So they won’t break when cooked in the sauce. It takes approximately 10 minutes to boil the eggs at room temperature. And if your eggs have been chilled in the fridge/ refrigerator, it may take 5-6 minutes longer.
The next thing you do is make the sambal. Pound all the spice paste ingredients into a paste. Then heat a little oil in a cooking pan and put the spice paste in it together with lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves. Add in sugar, salt and water. Cook until the spice releases a spicy but delicious aroma. Let it simmer for about 2-3 minutes until you can see that the oil slightly separates from the edges.
While your sauce is cooking, peel the eggs and put them in the sauce when it’s ready. Cook the eggs in sambal for at least 3-4 minutes.
Top Tip For Delicious Balado Telur
- Make sure you boil the eggs really firm and hard.
- Fry the chilli spice paste until it’s fully cooked and the liquid in it has evaporated, leaving the sauce thick, smooth and shiny.
More Spicy Recipes
Thank you for reading this Telur Balado recipe. Hope you like it. If you do try it, can you please share what you think about it in the comments below? I really appreciate it.
If you like spicy food, I recommend you check out my other recipes alike:
- Ayam Penyet: crushed fried chicken with chilli sambal.
- Beef Rendang.
- Balado Teri: fried anchovies in chilli sambal.
And please follow me on Facebook, Instagram and/or Pinterest. To sneak a peek at what’s cooking in my kitchen.
Thank you and all the best.
Telur Balado: Indonesian Eggs In Spicy Chilli Sambal
Equipment
- Cooking pan
- Pestle and mortar or
- Chopper or
- Food processor
- Frying pan
Ingredients
- 12 eggs.
- ¼ cup cooking oil and extra for frying.
- 1 lemongrass bruised and cut an inch long.
- 4 kaffir lime leaves.
- 1 teaspoon salt or according to taste.
- 1 teaspoon granulated sugar.
- ¼ cup water.
Spice paste:
- 8.82 ounces red chillies.
- 1 medium brown/yellow onion chopped.
- 3 cloves garlic.
- 2 tomatoes.
Instructions
- Boil the eggs until fully cooked and hard. It takes approximately 10 minutes to hard boil the eggs at room temperature. If your eggs have been refrigerated, it will take 3-4 minutes longer.
- Peel the eggs and deep fry them for about 2-3 minutes to harden the outer layer of eggs (see the note). Set aside.
- Grind all the spice paste ingredients into a smooth paste. You can use a pestle and mortar or a food processor.
- Heat ¼ cup of cooking oil in a cooking pan and fry the spice paste together with lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves. Add in the salt and sugar. Let everything cook until it bubbles and the oil slightly separates from the edges. Check the taste.
- Next, place the eggs in the chilli mixture and give it a good stir so the sauce will cover all the eggs. You can add ¼ cup of water in and cook further as you keep stirring every now and then until the sauce is bubbling and simmering.
Notes
- You may skip deep-frying the eggs if you want. Just make sure you hard-boil the eggs so they won’t break easily.
- Fry the chilli sambal until really cooked without any runny liquid.
Nutrition
Disclaimer
Nutritional info in this recipe is only estimate using online calculator. You should refer to it as a guide only. Please verify with your own data if you seek an accurate info.
