Don't try this at home: Cincalok

Last weekend as we strolled down the aisle at our neighborhood asian grocery store, we came across some interesting stuff. It's bottled shrimp ! Hubby picked it up and claimed that he hasn't had that for a while. His mom used to prepare it at home.

Later at home, he opened the bottle and let me sniffed it. Hmmm..it smells worst than I thought. And I prouded myself as a 'bold' eater. I think I wasn't that bold after all. But then again, it all boils down to getting used to. Look at Anthony Bourdain, he could eat durian. While Andrew Zimmern still couldn't after second try. But, Zimmern downed a lot of weird stuff that I wouldn't even think of trying.

Anyhow, after a few days I decided to finally 'prepare' that bottle of shrimp. The name is Cincalok and it's actually fermented shrimp. On the bottle, the ingredient list says shrimp and salt. From my childhood memory, I think my mom let us eat something like that before. It was brought to us by a relative who came from a fisherman's village. I took the bottle of from the fridge and shook some out on a small saucer. Sliced a bunch of onion and put in on top of the shrimp. To spice it up, I threw a table spoonful of crushed fresh red chillies. When hubby came home, I squeezed juice from one lime on the shrimp. Voila..it tasted better....just SLIGHTLY better :)