Thai Chili paste recipe

[glen]

Rick sent me a link to a Thai Chili paste recipe so I used it as a guide today to make it.  Have you ever asked for hot sauce in a Chinese Restaurant and they brought this pasty looking red stuff back to you in a little plate?  It is usually spicey but is on the sweet side and quite delicious.  Wonderful on chinese food and Thai food of course.  Well, I have seen chili paste in Chinese grocery stores all my life and I have bought it and used it but never did I think of trying to make it.  So I had to try and make it today.  Its cooling on the stove.  First of all, its beautiful red.  There are lots of seeds in the paste but don't worry, it is cooked enough that you won't even know they are there when you eat this paste.  I haven't even jarred it up yet.  Its made with a mix of hot peppers and a few Aji criollo as well.  Its very hot.  No where near as hot as chombo or habenero but plenty hot enough for the average person.  And, delicious.  I tried a tiny bit in my tongue.  The heat comes fast but it doesn't stay long.  Spread this chili paste anywhere on meats or rice or soups or stews or add it to your otherwize boring hot sauce to boost it up a little.  I am thinking that this paste will be excellent on fried chicken also.  

Here's the recipe.

I picked a bunch of peppers.  Thai hot.  Tobasco.  Pequins.  A few Chombo.  Some sweet Aji also.  Any chili pepper can go into your chili paste.  Its your paste.

I picked enough to fill a soup bowl about 3-4 full or so.  Pull the stems.  Wash.  Deseed all the bigger peppers.  They are easy to deseed.  My recipe has mostly tiny peppers in it.  They are full of seed.  You can't remove the seed.  Actually, the seed is tasty.

Cut some onion.  Some ginger.  Some garlic.  To your taste.  Chop it real course.  

Cut the biggest chili's up a little.

You need one of those food processor's that chop stuff up.  I have a real small one.   I have a medium size one which I used.  Start chopping all this stuff up.  Kind of fine.  Not coursely ground.  Not too fine either.  

In a big pot put some oil in it.  Just estimate how much you want.  You want to simmer the chili and onions and stuff for 20 minutes.  Add some olive oil just for flavor.  Olive oil will get solid in the fridge if you use plain olive oil.  I put some in just for flavor.  Simmer the pepper mixture on low heat for 20 minutes.

I added a small spoon of sea salt.  A teaspoon.  You can correct this later if it is not enough.  I added 3 tablespoons of yellow sugar.  Add other seasonings that you like.  The recipe called for some ingredient I ran out of.  

Don't leave the kitchen to do other chores while you simmering this paste.  You want to watch it.  Add oil if you think it needs it.  Stir it every few minutes.  Turn the heat down if its too hot.  You want to cook this slow.  For 20 minutes.

This stuff should look pasty looking.  A solid product.  

After 20 minutes let it cool.  Then jar it up and put it right in the fridge.  We don't want food poisoning.  

You can put it on a lot of different foods.  Or, use it in different sauces.  

It will add pizzazz to your life.

Like I said, I have already tasted mine.  Its fantastic.  I highly recommend tobasco's and Thai hot peppers for making this kind of product.  They are medium hot.  Perfect for the kitchen and as a condiment on the dinner table.

[glen]

This comment is in regards to food safety. The plan tomorrow is to divide the chili paste into 2 or 3 portions and I plan to put the extra in the freezer. I did some research on this. Apparently the product will stay safe to eat for a month or so. This product has no preservatives in it. Frozen, this product will last a year or so. So, for safety's sake the plan is to freeze part of it. Also, if you buy a commercial chili paste it contains chemical preservatives that should enable to product to stay useable for months. Another comment. Frozen chili peppers stay useable in the freezer for a long time. So, every garden season it is a good idea to freeze you extra Thai hot peppers or tobasco peppers. The frozen peppers will make a nice chili paste and this recipe is so easy and fast that its no big deal to make up a batch when you need it if you got some chili peppers in the freezer.

[rdback]

I'm glad this recipe worked out. It sounded good, and now you proved it lol.

[glen]

Back home I might have never made it. I would have just stopped into the chino store and bought a jar. Its not as convenient where I live now.

[glen]

Ok, I ate the paste with my lunch today. Its not really a paste. When the peppers went into the chopper they were nice and ripe, many juicy. So, the peppers sort of got shredded. Not chopped. The product ended up not being a paste. Which is ok. I spooned a portion onto my lunch plate today. Its like a spoonful of shredded red sauteed chili's with oil leeching out of it. I had some beef chunks with rice. I would just snatch a little bit of this chili paste with every bite. Its extremely spicey. My initial reaction on the first bite was to cough. There was an immediate shock from the spiciness. Everywhere in my mouth immediately was lit up. The heat is not sneaky at all, just rapid heat waves. The heat doesn't last long however, since I was eating my lunch and eating some of the paste with every bite, the heat was continuous. I consumed a good sized spoonful of this stuff. Very delicious if you like spicey flavor. The chili's I used were mostly Thai hot, and tobasco. I consider these peppers to be medium hot. Probably a little less hot than Chombo's or habenero's. For the average person, plenty hot enough. Bercy took a little portion of this stuff and she says its real pretty(much bonita). She took a tiny taste of it, began coughing right away. She says it tasted good, but would not venture in to take another taste of it. Hot stuff is not on the menu for most Latina's. Do I recommend this recipe? Of course. Absolutely delicious.

[glen]

Here is a couple of foto's of some Chili paste I made today.  The main difference between chili crisp and chili paste is how long the peppers are fried and how much oil is used.  Chili crisp is fried until the peppers turn dark.  More oil is used also.  This current recipe is mostly tobasco peppers.  But, its a mix of different peppers.  You can use what ever peppers you want to use but the best type is thin walled peppers.  I wouldn't use jalepeno's for example. 

This particular recipe is spicey.  I added a teaspoon of Bhut Jalokia to it and it also has about 15 Chombo in it with the tobasco and the other peppers.  The mix was sauteed long enough to soften the peppers and turn the oil red in color.

[glen]

I jarred up this batch of Chili paste right after it cooled. Half will go in the freezer. I tried it on some white
rice today with some chicken soup. It is brutally hot. The recipe has no sugar in it. No garlic in it. It does have some ginger root in it. I don't think ginger root is necessary. It is so spicy you can't taste it anyways. It is delicious in small dollops. I expect this batch to last much longer than the last. It is much hotter. This paste is hot immediately in your mouth, no floral or fruity after taste. The heat doesn't linger in your mouth for an excessively long time but there is a tremendous punch. Kind of like a George Foreman type punch, right in your face. This paste needs respect. This is a warning to those that are interested in Bhut Jalokia peppers. They need to be used with common sense and definitely used sparingly.

Oh, I wanted to talk about all that seed you see in this paste.  I used a lot of small peppers like tobasco and thai hot and pequin peppers.  Its not practical to deseed these types of peppers.  So I just leave them in the paste.  The seeds get soft in the paste so they don't mess up the paste.  Except visually, you really don't know they are in it.  The Chombo's were deseeded.  I will also deseed any Purple Thunder ahi's or Bhut Jalokia ahi's that I am able to produce.  Those are larger peppers so it is easier to deseed them.  

[glen]

Here is a different recipe that is interesting. It has peppercorns, garlic and also onions in it. The peppers look like Thai hot peppers. This recipe does not really have as much pepper in it as I would use. It is medium spicey.

This recipe is a good starting point for your own experimentation. Also, any chili pepper would be fine as long as its thin walled like tobasco or a habenero or Thai hots or ceyenne. Or, super-hot for that matter.



This recipe is easier in my opinion than making hot sauce and as far as I am concerned much better tasting.