Easy Thai Yellow Curry Paste

 Yellow curry is a bit hit at my house.  I always make a large batch of curry paste and freeze the leftovers using an ice-cube tray, and the cubes can be popped into any dish whenever I need it.  

(This trick also works well for things like tomato paste, where I always have more than I need and always have plenty of later uses for it.)

Easy Thai Yellow Curry Paste

Ingredients

4 large shallots
4 large heads of garlic (not individual cloves – FULL HEADS of garlic)
6-inch piece of fresh ginger
5–20 whole dried Thai chili peppers* (they’re very small and usually found in the spice section) or fresh Thai chili peppers (found in the produce section)
1 1/2 tablespoons salt
2–3 tablespoons turmeric
2–3 tablespoons mild curry powder
2 teaspoons roasted ground coriander
3 tablespoons lemongrass paste
1/4 cup packed cilantro leaves and stems

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Prep the aromatics: Peel the shallots – then drizzle with oil and wrap in foil. Peel the ginger and cut into thin slices. Arrange in a single layer, drizzle with oil, and wrap in foil. Pull the outer paper off the garlic. Cut the pointy tops off the heads of garlic so the cloves are partially exposed. Drizzle with oil, and wrap each head of garlic in foil.

Bake the aromatics: Place all the foil packets on a baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove the ginger (it should be soft), increase the temperature to 400, and roast the shallots and garlic for another 30 minutes until golden brown and very fragrant. When cooled, you can squeeze the garlic cloves out of the rest of the paper.

Soak the dried chilis: While the aromatics are roasting, pour boiling water over the chili peppers to rehydrate them. Let them soak for 15 minutes. Drain the water.

Make the paste: Put everything in a food processor or very strong blender. Pulse or puree until the yellow curry paste reaches your desired consistency. The recipe should make about 1 1/2 – 2 cups of curry paste, and I use about 1/3 cup or more in each of my yellow curry recipes, so usually I can get 4-5 batches of curry out of this yellow curry paste recipe. The paste keeps for about a week in the fridge and it freezes well!


**The number of peppers will either make your curry paste mild or hot.

5 chilis = very mild
10 chilis = medium
15 chilis = medium hot
20 chilis = HOT

Original link:

https://pinchofyum.com/easy-homemade-yellow-curry-paste 

Note: For a more authentic (but untested) curry paste recipe, try this https://pinchofyum.com/thai-yellow-curry-with-beef-and-potatoes