Red Curry Paste Krung Gaeng Deng

For those who want to make their own thai red curry paste. This stuff is fantastic and well worth the effort. Finding the ingredients is the challenge, but once you do making it is fairly easy. Adapted from

Steps

Place chiles in a bowl and cover with hot water.

Keep chiles submerged for 30 minutes or more.

Heat a small heavy skillet over medium high heat and dry roast coriander seeds , cumin seed and peppercorns.

Use a spice grinder to grind the spices together into a powder.

Mortar and pestle method: place ground spices in mortar , add lemongrass , coriander roots and galangal and pound to a paste.

Add lime zest to blend.

Add garlic , shallots and salt and pound to a smooth paste.

Transfer to a bowl and set aside.

Drain chiles , place in mortar , and pound to a paste.

When chiles are fairly smooth , add shrimp paste and pound together.

Add reserved spice paste and pound together.

Blender method: chop coriander roots , galangal , garlic and shallots fairly fine.

With blender running , add to blender.

Add spices , lemongrass , lime zest , salt and shrimp paste and continue to blend until you have a paste.

It may be necessary to stop and scrape down sides of blender.

Add a bit of.

Ingredients

dried small red chilies, coriander seeds, cumin seed, black peppercorns, lemongrass, coriander root, galangal, lime zest, garlic, shallot, salt, shrimp paste