By Yvonne T
MALUDAM, Feb 18: For Hasima, fondly known as Nor, the idea of producing powdered belacan did not come from a business plan or a market survey. It came from watching her mother work with her hands, shaping and pounding belacan into its familiar paste.
Her mother has long produced traditional belacan. Nor simply asked a different question, what if it could be made easier to use, easier to carry, and longer lasting?
“To make this belacan powder, we really have to dry it under the sun. We don’t roast it because the taste will turn bitter,” she told D’Drift team.
Instead of pounding the shrimp paste into the usual dense block or paste, Nor extends the drying process.
The belacan is left under the sun for nearly a week, slowly losing moisture until it becomes dry enough to be blended. Only then is it ground and mixed with carefully prepared ingredients to create different flavours.
The result is powdered belacan, light, savoury, and versatile.
“It takes about a week for us to sun dry this. Then we blend it with all the ingredients to make different flavours,” she explained.
“My mother has always made the original belacan shrimp paste. I just came up with the idea to make it into powder. A bottle of this can last for two to three months.”
The powdered version can be used as a powder dip for fruits or fresh vegetables, fried with rice for an extra layer of umami, or even mixed with water to return it to its familiar paste form.
It offers the same depth of flavour, but with more convenience and far less of the strong lingering scent that often defines traditional belacan.
Hailing from Tambirat, much of what goes into her bottles of belacan powder is sourced from home. Even the chillies are grown by the family, adding a fiery note to the spicier options of her powdered belacan.
The response has been encouraging, she shared, with customers traveling from as far as Bintulu to purchase the powdered belacan in bulk. In Kuching, her product has found its way onto shelves through a local reseller.
On a typical week, Nor sells at least 20 bottles from her stall, a steady demand for a business she has nurtured for more than four years.
Alongside the belacan sits coconut oil made using her grandmother’s traditional method. Coconut milk is patiently strained, then left to ferment before the oil separates naturally.
Around her, Pusat Penjaja MPKS Tambirat hums with other local specialties, from red rice cincalok to local gusip anchovies paste and an array of homegrown produce. Yet Nor’s powdered belacan stands out as a quiet reinvention of something deeply familiar. – DayakDaily
