One thing I really enjoy about being in Jakarta is the sheer variety of sambals and watching people use the traditional stone mortars, or cobek, to make them by hand, and to order. It’s a simple skill but the cooks are fast and precise with it and they’re a joy to watch. Many Indonesian dishes have a specific sambal that accompanies them and the one for this dish involves lots of red chilli, tomato, shrimp paste and a little candlenut, pounded roughly together. Apart from an initial flash-frying of the chilli, nothing is cooked – it’s such a wonderful accompaniment for the fried fish, which is briefly marinated in tamarind. It’s simple but so, so fresh and that’s what I love about the stall where I buy this, where all the ingredients are perfect. When they have finished cooking the fish they want to smash it hard with the pestle to loosen all the flesh and soften up the bones and I always have to step in and say ‘Please! Don’t! Stop!’ I love picking my fish flesh off bones and they’re always amused I don’t want them to smash it up.