Cooking with Chilli pepper

[Aggie]

ahhh... making Green Death curry....  galangal in my eye - splashback from mortar and pestle.....

[Pachyderm]

Nasty....


Still, no pain, no gain.

[Darlica]

Agujjim eyes in Green Death Curry...

Nah. Sounds like a bad idea to me. And I'm not even a vegetarian...

[Sibling DavidH]

Put a couple of bog-rolls in the freezer, ready, and check out the lap-strap on the toilet seat. 

[Aggie]

Agujjim eyes in Green Death Curry...

I'm spicy enough as it is: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agujjim

Made a non-Death variant for dinner last night (friends over, no point in killing 'em) and am already feeling it.  Dinner turned out very well, actually better than I expected, pairing the curry on rice with chili-basil shrimp fried rice noodles and veggies cooked in spice-simmered coconut milk (red chilies, pandan leaf, ginger, galangal, garlic, long pepper, kaffir lime leaves, scallions). About a billion calories, but no worries because it's purged itself this morning (guilt-free indulgence! well, there's a feeling but it ain't guilt ). Making room for the dim sum, I guess. 

Picked up some more lemon grass to finish off the rest of the batch, as that was the limiting ingredient on the first run. Going to be a mighty batch if I'm to use all those Thai chilies, even if it's Death curry.

I plan to drop a bit of the finished Green Death paste on a cooking-buddy's doorstep (in a jar, not literally on the doorstep, despite de-icing potential) and just watch for the mushroom cloud. 




Oh, for reference, ingredients included the following, starting with the fresh stuff:

-Galangal
-Lemon grass
-Pandan leaf
-Kaffir lime leaves
-Thai chilies, green
-Ginger
-Garlic
-Scallions
-Cilantro

-Long pepper (Piper longum), dried pods
-Coriander seed, dried (I prefer green fresh seeds from mature plants, but none available)
-Dried shrimp, toasted and powdered
-Sliced dried garlic, toasted and powdered
-Sea salt

-A little Filipino rum to blend the flavours
-Fish sauce

I pounded the fresh and dried ingredients to a rough paste in the mortar & pestle, then mixed the various piles of ingredients to taste with rum and fish sauce.  The first-taste had what I thought was a balanced amount of chilies (by eyeball; no, not like the galangal) but blew my head off - probably what I was looking for in the finished Death paste.  After adjustment with the other components, it balanced out nicely, but I have a substantial amount (80%) of the chilies remaining.  I need to go smash up more of everything else and get it dialed in to Death mode; if I just mixed in the chilies as it stands it'll be beyond death - you'd be born with RoF in the next life, too. The last time I put a similar amount of Thai chilies in a similar amount of sauce was for the Happy Hole wings (worked @ the campus pub @ school at the time), and ate a dozen for dinner; the table ordering the dozen 'suicide wings' finished a total of three between two people before rushing for the bathroom.  BTW, what's the opposite of 'occult', with respect to blood? 

[Aggie]

Just found a recipe for homemade fresh Sriracha online, and mean to try making it with cherry peppers today (we had good pepper yields this year, but I'm the only one who can take the hot ones in any significant amount).  I'll report back on the results:
http://www.food52.com/recipes/6441_fresh_sriracha_aka_home_made_rooster



Serves 1 1/2 cups

    1/2 pound red fresno chiles, coarsely chopped
    4 garlic cloves
    1 teaspoon kosher salt
    1 cup distilled white vinegar
    2 tablespoons palm sugar

Place all the ingredients except the sugar in a jar and let sit overnight to mellow the heat of the peppers. I guess one could consider this a brine.

Place the mixture and sugar in small saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat, then lower the heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside to cool to room temperature.

Transfer to a blender and puree for about 5 minutes, until a smooth, orange-red mixture forms. Run through a strainer and smush out as much juice as possible.

Once refrigerated, the sauce should have the same consistency and texture as the 'Rooster', but less salty and a whole lot fresher tasting!

I've also adapted a spicy Sriracha spread recipe combining a 1/2 cup vegenaise (or mayo, if you prefer), 1/8 cup of this fresh sriracha, and a Tablespoon of sweetened condensed milk. Yum for anything you'd use mayo on, but with a kick.

[pieces o nine]

I wish we'd known about this when Hasan was staying with us! V bought Walmart's Rooster sauce by the case so that he could make our blandest USAian food palatable. She's been in contact with him on FaceBook, so let me know whether this is a recipe worth passing on to him.   

[Aggie]

It's delicious. You can tell Hasan that he can substitute jaggery for the palm sugar if he can't find it or wants a stronger taste.  I used a little jaggery with white sugar in there as I don't have palm sugar at the moment.