Grilled Mackerel with Ginger Chilli Sambal

There are two cornerstones of Indonesian eating. Fluffy steamed rice is the canvas onto which the flavours are laid. The final spicy flourish is chilli sambal (a sauce or salsa with endless varieties) and no meal would be complete without one.

This sambal has a double hit of heat from chillies and fresh ginger, tamed yet somehow intensified by twice-cooking. Ginger sambals are documented in early Indonesian culinary texts, long before chillies were introduced to Asia.