Grind the mackerel with the cold water, garlic and salt

To begin the kneading process

Once the texture becomes soft and smooth, put it in a bowl or flat surface and add the tapioca flour then mix it until fully incorp incorporated. There's no need to knead the dough, otherwise I'll becomes hard when it's cooked

Add some tapioca flour on your hand when you mold the pempek, and make a long cylinder shape for 70gr each and round shape for 100gr each

For the cylinder ones or we call it "pempek lenjer", you can immediately put into boiling water. Let it boil until it's floating

Making "pempek kapal selam": make a hole with your thumb on top, press it open to create a Crater shape, big enough to put an egg yolk inside

Add an egg yolk with a little bit of egg white, then close the crater by bringing the corner of the crater together until it's fully closed, to avoid the egg from leaking

Then drop it into the boiling water, let it boiled until it's floating then add about 20mins more. This additional time requires to ensure the egg on the inside is also well cooked

This recipe should make 4 kapal selam and 8 lenjer. It's up to you how you want to shape them, if you think making lenjer is easier, you can also shape them all as lenjer (long cylinder)

Once everything is boiled, keep it aside until it's cool down before we fry it

While waiting let's make the sauce for pempek

Grind garlic, shallots, dried shrimp (ebi) and chilli until they form a paste

Place it in a pot along with other ingredients, stir to dissolve the sugar and bring it to boil

Let it boil for approximately 15-20mins, remove from the heat and then strain the sauce to remove the dried shrimp skins. Store it in a bottle or a jar

Lastly, fry the pempek before serving, once it's fried cut into bite size and soak with the sauce that we made. You can add sliced cucumber for more taste.