COPPERAmbuyat recipe
Brunei's national dish is deliberately tasteless sago starch set by boiling water alone, eaten by winding it onto a two-pronged bamboo fork and dipping it in a sour sauce.
Ingredients
- 250 g sago starch
- 500 ml water
- 3 tbsp tempoyak
- 3 red chillies
- 1 tsp shrimp paste
- 1 tbsp lime juice
How to make Ambuyat
- Put 250 g of sago starch in a large heatproof bowl and slake it with 500 ml of cold water.
- Bring 500 ml of water to a hard rolling boil: this poured water is what cooks ambuyat, it never goes on the stove.
- Pour the boiling water over the starch all at once while stirring hard with a wooden stick.
- Keep turning for 2 to 3 minutes until the mass turns translucent, glossy and glue-like.
- Add no salt and no oil; ambuyat is meant to have no taste of its own, everything comes from the dip.
- Make the cacah tempoyak: crush 3 red chillies with 1 teaspoon of shrimp paste, then stir in 3 tablespoons of tempoyak and 1 tablespoon of lime juice.
- Serve hot, wind a portion onto a candas, dip it in the sauce and swallow without chewing.
What is Ambuyat?
Ambuyat is a traditional dish from Brunei Darussalam, boiled, and takes about 15 minutes from start to finish. It is built around sago starch. The recipe below uses 6 ingredients and is written out step by step.
How long does Ambuyat take?
At 15 minutes it is quicker than 100% of the 586 dishes in Copper's atlas. The method runs to 7 steps, the longest being 3 minutes.
Any tips for making Ambuyat?
Pour the water at a hard rolling boil over the slaked starch all at once while stirring hard: that water is what cooks ambuyat, off the stove.
How Ambuyat compares
At 15 minutes, Ambuyat is among the 10 quickest of the 586 dishes Copper documents. Hard to find elsewhere: sago starch (1), tempoyak (1) and red chillies (2).
Cooked with the same thing elsewhere
Other traditional dishes built on red chili, from other countries.
- Muamba de galinha 🇦🇴 Angola
- Phaksha paa 🇧🇹 Bhutan
- Kung pao chicken 🇨🇳 China
- Kokoda 🇫🇯 Fiji
- Rendang 🇮🇩 Indonesia
- Nasi lemak 🇲🇾 Malaysia
Copper documents Brunei Darussalam alongside 197 other countries. Every recipe is free to read, with the full ingredient list and every step.