It might seem like Thai food has a million different chili paste/oil/sauces, and it’s true- they make a lot of sauces out of chili.  However, with the addition of this one to our pantry, we have covered three of the four main styles of chili pastes.  The only one we are missing is curry pastes, which we will start tackling next week.  Hopefully by then I’ll have a food processor, because pounding things with a mortar and pestle has gone from fun-cultural-experience to jesus-I-can-see-why-no-one-does-this-any-more.  So, to review, we have Sweet Chili Sauce, which is sort of a chili jelly, albeit thinned and made more savory with vinegar.  We have Roasted Chili Oil, which is an oil based sauce, made rich with roasted shallots and sweetened with palm sugar.  Today’s project is a thick chili jam.

Chili jam is sweetened, but the sugar is tempered by the dried peppers and the shrimp paste.  Shrimp paste isn’t always the easiest to find in the US, but a good substitute is 1 tablespoon of fish sauce.  It won’t be quite the same (shrimp paste has a sharp note that goes very well with the heat and sugar in this jam).  This chili jam isn’t something that you are going to be spreading on toast (OK, well, those of you who like marmite should try this on toast), but it is a base ingredient in lots of stir-fries, including this week’s What’s For Dinner: Cashew Chicken.

Thai Chili Paste | น้ำพริกชน

2 tablespoons oil (something neutral: sunflower, safflower, canola, peanut)

20 Asian Shallots, sliced (or 10 French Shallots, or 6 American Shallots)

10 garlic cloves, skinned, crushed and roughly chopped

10 long red chilies, seeded and roughly chopped

2 dried long red chilies, seeded and chopped

3 tablespoons tamarind juice*

6 tablespoons palm sugar (can substitute brown sugar)

2 teaspoon shrimp paste or 1 1/2 tablespoon fish sauce

*Tamarind juice, sometimes called tamarind puree, can be purchased prepared.  If you cannot find the prepared variety, an egg sized piece of dried tamarind paste should be added to a small bowl with 1 cup of warm water.  Massage the tamarind paste until it starts to break up, and then let set for 15 or 20 minutes.  Massage again- the water should have dissolved most of the tamarind, and have thickened slightly.  Strain out the fruit fibers, and measure as directed.

Heat 1 1/2 tablespoons of oil in a wok until shimmering.  Add the shallots and garlic and fry over medium heat for 2 minutes.  Turn the flame down to low and gently caramelize the shallots and garlic, stirring every minute or so.  When the shallots are the color of dark brown sugar (!), transfer to the bowl of a food processor, or to the mortar of a mortar and pestle, leaving the oil in the wok.

Add the remaining 1/2 tablespoon of oil to the same wok.  Heat over high heat until shimmering and add the dried chilies.  Fry in the oil 5-10 seconds, or until the color of the chilies darkens one shade.  Immediately add the fresh chilies (this stops the dry chilies from burning so make sure you are ready to go beforehand) and fry 2 minutes.  Remove from heat and add, along with the oil, to the shallot/garlic mixture.  Add the remaining ingredients to the bowl or mortar, and grind until you have a rough paste.  You don’t want to make the paste too finely ground- you should still be able to identify individual elements.  Pack into a clean jar and refrigerate.  This chili paste only gets better with time- at least 2 weeks of ageing in the fridge really makes a difference.

No, really, I’m doing that.  On purpose.

Will last six months or more refrigerated.