Name: Basic Red Chilli paste
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 25 min
Ingredients: About 250g red chillies; 1 Tbsp olive oil; 1 garlic clove (raw) or 3 roasted; ½ tsp salt; Juice of ½ lemon or lime; 1 Tbsp tomato purée; 1 handful fresh herb (such as Coriander, mint or basil)

Basic Red Chilli paste

16 Feb 2017

by Dinna

Prep Time

5 minutes

Cook Time

20 minutes

Total Time

25 minutes

Background

When in season, at my local grocery market I get a large bowl of fresh chillies for almost nothing, and I make chutney, jam, pickle or paste from them. This basic chilli paste is very simple and an excellent base for other sauces or can be used to add a bit of zing to marinades, dips, toppings and spreads. Keep it chilled in a sterilized jar.

Ingredients

About 250g red chillies
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove (raw) or 3 roasted
½ tsp salt
Juice of ½ lemon or lime
1 Tbsp tomato purée
1 handful fresh herb (such as Coriander, mint or basil)

Instructions

Place the chillies in a roasting tray and rub them with olive oil. Roast them in the oven until golden. ( You can roast the garlic cloves too, unpeeled).
Transfer the roasted chillies to bowl, put a lid on, and let them sweat. When cool, remove the stalks of the chilli (and the skin if you like) and the seeds, if you don’t want the paste to be too spicy. (I normally leave the seeds in and the skin on).
Put the chillies in a food processor together with the cooking juices. Add the garlic - roughly chopped, if raw, or scraped out of their skin, if roasted. Add salt, lemon/lime juice and tomato purée. Whiz until smooth.
Transfer to an airtight jar. Chill in the refrigerator.

Tips

This is the basic recipe – you can add any herbs you like (coriander, parsley, mint and basil are the most suitable).
For South-Asian flavours instead of tomato purée and salt add a spoonful of fish sauce, shrimp paste, tamarind paste (or rice vinegar) and palm sugar
For a Mexican- style paste add a teaspoonful of ground cumin and use coriander and lime!