Sambal stingray in banana leaf, done in the oven

Sambal stingray at a hawker stall comes off charcoal, and charcoal is not happening in a flat. What you can reproduce at home is the important part: a hot, direct top heat that chars the sambal without overcooking the fish underneath, and a banana leaf doing the job of keeping the fish moist while it happens.

The smoke is real, though. This dish will set off a poorly ventilated kitchen. More on that below, because it is not a footnote.

For the sambal

• 15 dried chillies, soaked in hot water and deseeded
• 6 shallots
• 4 cloves garlic
• 2cm galangal
• 1 stalk lemongrass, white part only
• 1 tsp toasted belacan
• 1 tbsp tamarind pulp in 3 tbsp water, strained
• 1 tbsp palm sugar
• 3 tbsp oil
• Salt

For the fish

• 1 stingray wing, about 500g to 600g
• 2 large banana leaves, rinsed and passed briefly over a flame or dipped in hot water to soften
• Calamansi limes and sliced raw shallot, to serve

Method

1. Blend the chillies, shallots, garlic, galangal, lemongrass and belacan into a paste. Add a splash of water if the blender stalls.
2. Fry the paste in the oil over medium heat, stirring often, until it darkens and the oil separates out at the edges. This takes 15 to 20 minutes and you cannot rush it. Underfried sambal tastes raw and harsh.
3. Add the tamarind water, palm sugar and salt. Cook another five minutes. Cool.
4. Line a baking tray with foil, then lay the banana leaves on top, overlapping. Put the stingray on the leaves.
5. Spread a generous layer of sambal over the top surface of the fish. Do not sauce the underside; the leaf handles that side.
6. Preheat the grill to maximum. Position the tray so the fish sits about 12 to 15cm from the element.
7. Grill 12 to 15 minutes for a 500g wing. The sambal should blister and darken at the edges. The fish is done when the flesh pulls away from the cartilage with light pressure.
8. Serve on the leaf, with calamansi squeezed over and raw shallot scattered on top.

The grill element, and how hot it needs to be

This dish wants intense radiant heat from directly above for a short time. An oven with a weak single-element grill will cook the fish through before the sambal chars, and you end up with a dull red paste rather than blistered edges.

The Teka SteakMaster is the most aggressive option here. Teka rates its SteakGrill function at 700C and supplies a cast iron grid, and the oven also carries Grill and MaxiGrill among 12 functions plus a pyrolytic clean cycle, which you will want after this. It is 71 litres gross, 63 net.

The Teka HLB 8416 AirFry includes MaxiGrill in its function list too, and at 71 litres it takes a full-size wing on a tray without folding it.

More in Built-in Ovens.

About the smoke

Belacan, chilli and blistering sambal produce a lot of it, and an oven grill vents into the room. In an HDB kitchen with the door closed, this dish is genuinely unpleasant without extraction running.

A hood positioned over the hob does not sit over the oven, so run it anyway on high and open a window. If you cook this sort of thing often, hood choice matters more than oven choice. The Fujioh FR-CL1890 is a 900mm Japanese-made chimney hood using a high-speed spinning disc to capture oil before it settles on surfaces, with a cleaning reminder for the disc. Worth a look in Cooker Hoods if your current extraction is not coping.

Whether your hood can be ducted outside at all is a building question, not a shopping one. Our guide on ducted or recirculating extraction in an HDB kitchen sets out what to check before you choose.

Questions people ask

Cook next

More high heat and more mess: sio bak with proper crackling. Or move to the hob for char kway teow and the wok hei problem. Sizing an oven for whole fish and large trays? See oven capacity explained.