Tom Yum Paste
Ingredients
- 100 gm of dried chilies - discard the seeds , wash and drain. Once dried , toast until it turned to dark red color and chrunched . Using a mortar or dry blender , grind to powder .
- Blend
- 15 shallot
- 6 cloves of garlic
- 2 cm of fresh galangal
- 4 stalks of lemongrass
- 2-3 coriander roots
- A tablespoon of grated kaffir lime skin ( zest )
- 1 tablespoon of toasted prawn paste or 2 tablespoon of dried prawn
- 10 bird eye chilies
- 5 kafir lime shoots / leaves
- 2 tablespoons of fish sauce
- 1/2 cup of fresh lime juice
- 2 tablespoons of oil for stir-frying
- salt and palm sugar to taste
Method
Heat oil in a pan . Sautéed the blended ingredients until fragrant or it starts sizzling . Add in the dried chili powder , stir and mix with a little bit of water to combine the mixture . Leave it to simmer until its start to sizzle again . Add in the fish sauce with the lime juice . Stir .Add salt and palm sugar . Stir and leave it to simmer . The paste is ready once its color changed to dark red and oil surface. The paste is a combination of hot , sweet and sour . Make sure the flavors are balanced before you turned off the heat . Store in an air-tight container or a cleaned bottle in refrigerator , once cooled .
The usage
Besides Tom Yum Kung the paste is perfect for Thai Red Curry , Fried Noodles or Bee Hoon ( Vermicelli ) or stir-frying dishes .
