Making Chilli Paste

In Malay cooking, a lot of chillies are used.Chillies are added to food to make it hot and to give a beautiful tinge to the food. The amount of chillies used depend on one's own taste. If you cannot stand the 'hotness' you can use less chillies. Some people add a lot of sugar to counter the 'hotness'. I would, however, use less chillies and hence, less sugar instead.

I prefer to make my own chilli paste. Buying fresh cili boh as it is called in Malaysia is an option for those in a hurry. Doing so would put you at risk of an upset tummy if your tummy is a sensitive one. You see, the chillies are not seeded and maybe uncooked prior to blending them to a paste in commercially- made cili boh.The place where the cili boh is made may also not be clean.

As most dried chillies are mixed with certain impurities and packed with preservatives, it is best that you select the good ones and discard gunny sack threads or small stones,if found.

To make the cili boh, the chillies are first cut into small strips with a pair of kitchen scissors.I do not use a knife as it is easier with scissors and my fingers are not in direct contact with the chillies.

Making chilli paste (cili boh) is not too difficult.After cutting the dried chillies, place them in a colander and shake of the seeds through the sieve.Wash the chillies in a bowl and drain using the colander. Next you need to boil the chillies in freshly filtered water in a small pot. Boiling would get rid of any germs present and straining the water would reduce any preservative left in the chillies.When the chillies are cooled, you sieve and drain off the water using the colander again.

Then, you need to place them, a bit at a time in a liquidiser and add filtered water of cool boiled water before blending. Do not attempt to place the whole amount you want to liquidize at one time in the liquidizer as it be more difficult to blend. After several additions of chillies to the blender, voila! you now have your own cili boh.

Bottle them up in empty, dry and clean jam or spaghetti sauce jars. You can use plastic containers but they stain after some time. Store your cili boh in the refridgerator. Keeps best for 2 weeks. Do not prepare too much as it would not be too healthy to keep it too long, even in the fridge. If you want to preserve in longer put small packs in the freezer.

You can also make chilli paste from fresh red chillies. But if for some reason you cannot find fresh or dried chillies you would have to resort to using powdered chillies instead. You have to be careful when using chilli powder as it tends to be hotter as the seeds have been pulverized with the chillies.You therefore need to use very little of the powder when cooking.

To add bulk or volume to your gravy dish, you may add chopped onions or tomatoes when using chilli powder to make curries or sambal.

Anyway, a newbie cook like my son Afif, (who was never interested to be in the kitchen) would have to experiment and find out for himself how much chillies to use that suits him best.

The same applies to putting salt and sugar or tamarind/vinegar in the dish. Always start with a little and work yourself up.

When you have mastered how much to put it, then the aroma from your cooking will tell you whether it is delicious or too sour/salty/sweet.You then would not need to taste the food while cooking. Well....that will take a lot of experience to reach to that stage.

Meanwhile, one has to start somewhere.

Happy trying.