This calamansi dipping sauce for rice paper comes out sour and hot, fragrant with butter, and studded with quail eggs and crushed peanuts. The difficulty is keeping it from turning bitter or overly salty.
The calamansi are halved, squeezed and then strained completely free of seeds, because the seeds are what make the sauce bitter. The unsalted butter is melted and set aside, and it goes in with a light hand since butter already carries salt.
This batch weighs about 805g, at roughly 184 calories per 100g.
Method
Bring a pot of water to a boil with 1 teaspoon salt and cook 20 quail eggs until just done. Lift them into cold water, peel them, and leave them whole or halve them.
Wash 100g spring onion, discard any yellowed leaves, drain thoroughly and chop finely. Halve 12 calamansi, squeeze out the juice and strain out the seeds so the sauce does not turn bitter.
Melt 1 tablespoon unsalted butter in a pan, then pour it into a separate bowl.
In the same pan, heat 3 tablespoons cooking oil, turn off the heat immediately and stir in the spring onion to make scallion oil, then set it aside.
Crush 50g roasted peanuts in a mortar, keeping them coarse for texture.
Put all the calamansi juice in a large bowl, add the melted butter, 3 tablespoons chili sauce and 7 tablespoons kOBE Monk Fruit Blend, and stir until dissolved and slightly thickened.
Transfer the sauce to a large bowl, add 20g dried baby shrimp and 1 tablespoon Tay Ninh shrimp salt and mix well. Finally add 30g fried shallots, the crushed peanuts and the scallion oil, fold gently and arrange the quail eggs on top.
Tips
Strain the calamansi seeds carefully, as a few left behind are enough to turn the whole bowl bitter.
Go easy on the butter, since it already carries salt and pushes the sauce sharp.
Let the melted butter cool a little before the calamansi juice goes in, as anything too hot splits the sauce.
Crush the peanuts coarsely, since a fine grind loses the crunch.
The spring onion must be completely dry before it meets the oil, or the oil spits.
Need kOBE Monk Fruit Blend?
The recipe above is sweetened with kOBE Monk Fruit Blend, measured 1:1 like sugar. See the product page or send us a message.