Hot Sour Curry Paste

	Hot Sour Curry Paste Thailand
	Makes Effort: Sched: DoAhead:	3/4 cup ** 1/2 hr Best		This Thai curry paste is fairly hot but not sour. It gets it's name from use in various hot-sour soups. It is relatively perishable but will keep refrigerated for a week or so and can be frozen for longer storage.

3
5
1-3/4
1
1
1

oz
oz
oz
cl
t
t

Shrimp
Chili, Red (1)
Shallots
Garlic
Salt
Shrimp paste (2)

Cook SHRIMP (if already cooked just use 2 oz) in boiling water for a few minutes, cool and chop fine.
Blast CHILIS black with your propane torch and rinse the skins off under running water. Cut off the caps, core and wash out the seeds. Leave most of the membranes - it's supposed to be hot. Chop small.
Peel SHALLOTS, slice thin and chop fine. Crush GARLIC, slice and chop fine.
Pound Chilis and Salt to a paste in a large granite mortar (Note-3). Add Shallots and Garlic and continue to pound into a paste. Finally add Shrimp and Shrimp Paste. Continue to pound until all is well blended.

NOTES:

Chilis: Fresh Fresno or Holland Red chilis are fine here. See my Chili Page for details. The amount given will result in a comfortably hot soup (by Southern California standards) at 1 T per cup of water. Feel free to increase the chilis up to double if you like hotter.
Some recipes call for soaking dried chilis - don't. Skin flakes will give the soup a mouth feel like you forgot to scale the fish. If you have to use dried reduce them to powder in your spice grinder before soaking.
Shrimp Paste: This should be Thai shrimp paste which is a little more civilized than most other Southeast Asian shrimp pastes.
Pounding: For stuff like this I often chop fine, then run in my mini-prep food processor before pounding in the big granite mortar. Cuts down on pounding time.
U.S. measure: t=teaspoon, T=Tablespoon, c=cup, qt=quart, oz=ounce, #=pound, cl=clove in=inch