How to master the art of “pecah minyak” or “oil splitting” and properly cook dried chilli paste in Malay cooking.
If you’re new to Malay cooking, you might be stumped at this term: “pecah minyak”. In Malay cooking, “pecah minyak”, roughly translated as oil breaking or oil splitting, is a stir frying process of properly and completely cooking dried chilli paste. “Pecah minyak” is also a common term for Nonya or Peranakan cooking, which bears many similarities with Malay cuisine.
Dried chilli paste is a blend of dried chillies, and is a common base ingredient for a lot of Malay cooking. It adds spice as well as a richness to our dishes. If you want to cook good Malay food, you will have to get familiar with this ingredient, including how to properly cook it.
You might be intimidated by this process. Don’t be!
In this post, I am going to simplify and demystify it for you, so you can cook Malay food with confidence.
What is “Pecah Minyak”?
Dried chilli paste is cooked at the beginning of the cooking process. The dried chilli paste is added to a lot of oil, and stir fried slowly over low heat to cook. Once the dried chilli paste has fully cooked, it will appear emulsified as the liquid would have cooked off.
As a result, the oil will become more apparent, and floating above the paste. This looks as though the dried chilli paste produced the oil. Hence the term “pecah minyak” or oil splitting. This is not actually the case at all. The paste has simply emulsified to allow all that oil to appear much more than when you first added it in.
Dried chilli paste is a key ingredient in Malay cuisine so getting the hang of this process is important if you want to make Malay food. This happens at the beginning of the cooking process.
What is Dried Chilli Paste?
Dried chilli paste is, at its core, a simple blend of mashed dried chillies. For the purposes of this post, dried chilli paste would refer to the spice base paste of a dish. Most of the time you are not just using basic dried chilli paste; likely you’ll have other herbs and spices blended together depending on the recipe.
You can easily make your own dried chilli paste, although these days they can be easily purchased at our local supermarkets. See this post for more information on Dried Chilli Paste, as well as how to make your own easy batch.
This “pecah minyak” cooking process applies for both homemade dried chilli paste, and the store bought versions. I, of course, would highly recommend making your own dried chilli paste.
Ready-made Dried Chilli Paste
- The store-bought versions tend to have more water added, which means longer time in the pan to stir fry. If you choose to use store-bought versions, do take note of this.
- It also has added salt, and sometimes vinegar, that act as preservatives. This means it is a bit more guesswork to determine how much seasoning you need for your dish.
Homemade Dried Chilli Paste
A few tips to ensure good paste when making your own homemade dried chilli paste:
- Soak the dried chillies adequately to completely soften it. Softening it would mean it can blend into a paste easier, and requires lesser water.
- Add water bit by bit, when blending up the dried chillies.
- Use oil in place of water to blend up the dried chillies! The amount of oil needed to blend this easily might intimidate you, but don’t worry, because we need to use the oil to cook the dried chilli paste anyway.
By the way, dried chilli paste is not exclusively used in Malay or Malaysian cuisine. A lot of Singapore, Indonesian and even Thai dishes require the use of dried chilli paste! For example, Laksa, Rendang and Thai Red and Massaman Curries.
In some of these recipes, I notice that the “oil breaking” process is not emphasised. Simply ‘stir frying it until fragrant’ is the most common instruction. While you can serve a decent dish like so too, allowing the dried chilli paste to “pecah minyak” will allow the flavour to fully develop, resulting in an even more delicious, levelled-up flavour!
You don’t have to take my word for it! Give it a try the next time you have to cook off any spice base paste with dried chillies in it.
Why is “Pecah Minyak” Important?
This pecah minyak process is considered important in Malay cooking to get a delicious dish.
A few reasons why this is so:
- It deepens the flavour of the dried chillies and any additional herbs that you might add in your paste. Cooking it proper gives the dried chillies an extra roasty flavour.
- It removes the raw taste of the dried chillies, which can come off bitter.
- It prolongs the shelf life of the dish. Stir frying the dried chilli spice paste will allow the excess liquid or water to completely cook off and evaporate. No excess liquid means less chances of bacteria to breed, thus prolonging the dish.
- Advice from our moms would also say that this prevents an upset tummy due to the completely cooked spice base. Not too sure about the accuracy of this: cooking over heat is suppose to kill off bacteria, much like with any other food. My dried chilli paste recipe goes through the extra step of pouring hot boiling water to rehydrate the dried chillies. In the process, any bacteria should be killed off too. Therefore, you should not get a tummy ache even if you did not “pecah minyak” adequately.
Points 1-3 would be the most relevant (sorry moms!). Therefore, can you cook your dish without going through the “pecah minyak” process? Yes, it just will not be as delicious!
How to Pecah Minyak?
- In a pan add plenty of oil. Using low heat, allow the oil to get hot.
2. Gently pour in the dried chilli paste. Ensure oil is not too hot, or else you will get splatter.
3. Continuously stir the dried chilli paste over low heat.
4. Your dried chilli paste is cooked and ready for the next step once you have achieved “pecah minyak”.
How do you know you’ve achieved “Pecah Minyak”?
The dried chilli paste is properly cooked and you have achieved “pecah minyak” when:
- The surrounding oil has turned bright red.
- The oil is floating on top of the dried chilli paste.
- The dried chilli paste has turned into a darker, deeper shade of red.
- The dried chilli paste has dried down slightly. From a runnier paste, it has emulsified into a thicker, almost clumped-together paste.
- It will start to smell a lot more aromatic and fragrant.
The actual oil floating on top of the paste is not the only indication that your dried chilli paste has cooked through. Any one of these (or all!) are telltale signs that your dried chilli paste is fully cooked and you can move on to the next step.
A few tips to get pecah minyak:
- Use plenty of oil. This is why Malay dishes are not as healthy as our Chinese, or even Indian, counterparts.
- Stir fry over low heat. This prevents from scorching or burning the dried chillies before you are done cooking the dried chillies. The result is a bitter paste, which would ruin the flavours of the dish. You can use a medium heat too, once you get the hang of the “pecah minyak” process.
- Constantly stir the dried chilli paste to not burn it.
- The time to stir depends on the amount of dried chilli paste, and the amount of liquid that is in the dried chilli paste.
Do you really need that much oil?
Actually no! You just need enough to be able to cook the dried chilli paste. I personally do not use as much oil in my dishes.
However using more oil will help:
- The dried chilli paste will stick to the bottom of the pan, if you do not use enough. This will also cause it to burn easily. Oil will create a lubricant between the paste and the bottom of the pan.
- If you use non-stick pans, feel free to use less oil!
- It is a lot easier to tell that the dried chilli paste has cooked down enough. Using enough oil will allow the oil to float on top of the paste and you can quickly move to the next step of the recipe.
TLDR;
There you go! It sounds complicated, but hopefully you can see that it really is not. Once you’ve successfully “pecah minyak” a few times, it will come as second nature to you. You might even move from using a low heat to gasp! a medium heat!
The only thing you need to know is:
- Use a low-medium heat and constantly stir the dried chilli paste.
- The dried chilli paste is done once it dries down/emulsifies/changes colour/ the surrounding oil has turned red.
Ready to “Pecah Minyak”? Try any of these recipes now:
- Sambal Condiment
- Sambal Prawns
- Ayam Masak Merah | Spicy Tomato Stew Chicken
- Asam Pedas | Spicy and Sour Tamarind Fish Curry
- Seafood Mee Goreng | Malay Fried Noodles
- Sambal Goreng | Spicy Tofu Tempeh Stir Fry
- Ayam Masak Kicap | Spicy soy sauce chicken
I married a Malay and have always been confused by the “pecak minyak”! Your post is the most helpful one I’ve come across! Thank you soooooo much!
Yayyy! I am Malay and even “pecah minyak” confused me at first too 😀 Hope I made it just a teeny bit clearer for you, do let me know if you need more help on this!
My chilli paste did not pecah minyak, not even half the oil I used to fry in the beginning. I used ‘mexico’ fresh chilli (plump shape – that’s those I had). Could it be that reason? Thank You for sharing your knowledge.
Hi Debbie, yes that is likely the reason! With fresh chillies, you will not get the same “oil splitting” effect with dried chillies. Try to use dried chillies (dried mexican chillies can work too), otherwise with fresh chillies, cook it down until the chillies are soft and wilted to remove that raw chilli taste and the sambal should be good.
How about dropping the term ‘ mom’ in your very helpful cooking advice. I do most of the cooking in my family and I’m an 82 year old man..I’m sure there are many others like me. I’ve used the pecah minyak technique for years but on reflection perhaps not long enough. I will in future.