Recipe Thai Red Curry Paste, Mostly!

[Barriehie]

I found a Vietnamese/Thai grocery an hour away and I'll go there next week for an Asian grocery run. 👏

Until then I'm going to call this an 'almost' for red curry paste.

I used:

• 35 g gaujillo chili
• 17 g de arbol chili
• 1 tsp ground whole white peppercorns
• 2 tsp sea salt
• Lemongrass juice
• 26 g garlic, crushed then ground
• 1 bunch cilantro stems
• Zest and juice from 1 lime
• 1/2 cup puréed yellow onion

Onion, garlic, cilantro stems, lime zest, lime juice, lemongrass juice, and salt all in the Cuisinart mini-chopper. Then combined with the powdered stuffs

Now in the fridge to mellow/meld for at least a day.

I've been away from it for about 40 minutes and upon taking it out of the fridge and opening the lid you get this definite bang in your face aroma of chili spice and lime. Tasting it is also a *pow* of chili. It'll be better tomorrow!

 

[badjak]

Have you tried it yet?

 

[Barriehie]

Have you tried it yet?

Not yet. Sitting in the parking lot where I *hope* to get an authentic brand so I can compare.

 

[Barriehie]

Okay, got the authentic ones! What I got!!! 👍

Mine is instantly pretty hot and it tapers off rather quick. The lime and lemongrass flavors are a bit muted. They're there but then again the lemongrass was dry and the lime was whatever Walmart had, probably from Florida. Not bad for a first try.

The recommended brand, Maesri, smelled like mine but the flavors were smoother and you could catch a hint of the fermented shrimp paste. The heat from the chili's came on slower, was mellower, and lasted a bit longer. The lime and the lemongragrass were more pronounced and blended better with the chili's.

I think to sum up the chili's I used in mine were hotter to start with than the commercial product ones and the other ingredients in the bought tub were fresher. By a narrow margin I'd prefer the Maesri over mine at this point. I can mellow mine out by adding in the one I bought at Walmart; the Mccormick brand based one. I think with fresh ingredients I'll be able to pretty much mimic, and taylor, a homemade version no problem.