Chilli and Harissa Paste

We were given these chillies to us from my wife's aunt who has a variety of herbs, vegies and fruit in her garden.  Every time we visit, it is like harvest time for us.  It is a real delight to receive home-grown organic produce.

Bell pepper chillies

Birds eye chillies

With the freezer overflowing, I thought I had better get on to using them and decided to make some chilli pastes.  The first was a harissa paste.

Harissa Paste

I got the Harissa Paste recipe from one of my favourite food blogs - 3 Hungry Tummies. The only difference is I used fresh birds eye chillies instead of dried chillies.  The bird eye chillies were HOT!

Will post an update when I use the harissa.

Geoff's chilli paste

This is my own recipe.  Traditional you would use dried chillies for this type of chilli paste but again, I used fresh chillies.

Recipe


Ingredients:

300g bell pepper chillies

10 cloves garlic chopped
5 large shallots (asian)
50ml water
1 tbsp belacan (shrimp paste)
oil

Method:

Blend all chillies, garlic and shallots into a fine paste.  Heat oil on medium heat and fry the blended paste until fragrant.  Still constantly, otherwise it will splatter.  Cook for 30-45 minutes.

Halfway through cooking, put in belacan and continue stirring until dissolved.  Salt to taste.  Cool and bottle.  Will keep up to 2 weeks in the fridge and 3 months in the freezer.

Use in stir fries or as an accompaniment to fried noodles, fried rice etc.