Red Curry Paste (krung Gaeng Deng)

Total Time: 50 mins Preparation Time: 45 mins Cook Time: 5 mins

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups dried small red chilies, stemmed,seeded and broken into pieces (about 1 1/2 oz)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons coriander seeds
• 1 teaspoon cumin seed
• 1/8 teaspoon black peppercorns
• 2 stalks lemongrass, trimmed and minced
• 1 tablespoon coriander root, coarsley chopped
• 1/4 cup galangal, coarsley chopped
• 1 teaspoon lime zest
• 1/4 cup garlic, chopped
• 1/4 cup shallot, coarsley chopped
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons shrimp paste

Recipe

• 1 place chiles in a bowl and cover with hot water.
• 2 keep chiles submerged for 30 minutes or more.
• 3 heat a small heavy skillet over medium high heat and dry roast coriander seeds (about 3 minutes), cumin seed and peppercorns (about 1 minute each).
• 4 use a spice grinder to grind the spices together into a powder.
• 5 mortar and pestle method: place ground spices in mortar, add lemongrass, coriander roots and galangal and pound to a paste.
• 6 add lime zest to blend.
• 7 add garlic, shallots and salt and pound to a smooth paste.
• 8 transfer to a bowl and set aside.
• 9 drain chiles, place in mortar, and pound to a paste.
• 10 when chiles are fairly smooth, add shrimp paste and pound together.
• 11 add reserved spice paste and pound together.
• 12 blender method: chop coriander roots,galangal,garlic and shallots fairly fine.
• 13 with blender running, add to blender.
• 14 add spices, lemongrass, lime zest, salt and shrimp paste and continue to blend until you have a paste.
• 15 it may be necessary to stop and scrape down sides of blender.
• 16 add a bit of chile soaking water if mixture seems very dry.
• 17 drain chiles, reserving liquid.
• 18 add to blender with enough soaking liquid to blend into a thick paste.
• 19 store in refrigerator (should keep a couple of months) or i freeze in an ice cube tray and transfer to a freezer bag when frozen.