Chilli Paste – A Delicious Seasoning Base

A chilli paste is a delicious seasoning base for any dish where you want to add spice and flavour. It makes life easier when cooking because you don’t need to rinse, peel and prep garlic, ginger and chilli every time you cook, you can just add a teaspoon of this delicious chilli paste made from scratch, as a base of any dish and enjoy the result. 

In the Peruvian cuisine, garlic and chilli are the base for most dishes

It gives a preliminary flavour to the other ingredients. Peru grows many kinds of chillies, with different flavours and levels of heat. Unfortunately, it is difficult to find fresh Peruvian chillies in London, where I currently live, and therefore, I cannot make my own traditional chilli base and chilli sauces.

After a recent trip to Lima, Peru, I tasted a variety of chilli sauces and decided to create my own with the Bird’s eye chilli, which I easily find in London.

I made several sauces with different amounts of chilli and a different combination of ingredients. They were alright but not like at home. Then, in an attempt to make Peruvian style chilli sauce, the result was too hot to eat as a sauce, but I found another use of it. It became my chilli paste – a delicious seasoning base that I now use for marinades, sautéed food in a wok, and many other dishes. 

A heaping teaspoon of this hot paste is a good amount to add flavour and give a little punch to many dishes.

Time to prepare: Ten minutes Makes: 1/2 cup of paste

Ingredients:

75 gr Bird’s eye chilli

4 cm Ginger

3 Garlic cloves

¼ cup Olive oil

Salt

Instructions:

1. Rinse bird’s eye chillies, remove the stems and reserve.
2. Peel garlic cloves, cut in half lengthwise and remove the germ.
3. Peel ginger and cut in pieces.
4. Put all ingredients in a mixer and blend until you get a smooth paste.
5. Reserve in the fridge. It lasts for up to three weeks.

Here is an idea to put this chilli paste to good use for grilled chicken legs:

• 4 chicken legs with thighs
• 1 heaping teaspoon of chilli paste
• 3 tablespoons of soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon of ground cumin
• 2 Karif lime leaves
• 2 Bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon of dried tarragon
• 33 ml Lager beer

Mix all ingredients with chicken legs and leave in the fridge in a closed container for at least two hours.

Read more recipes and get flavourful ideas to try in your kitchen here