Recipe ingredients and directions:
This basic recipe is used to make two table "pouring" sauces of the type
you might use to flavor an omelet or other relatively bland dish.
If you make it with the chilies known in Thailand as prik chi fa daeng and
sometimes called the Thai jalapeno (daeng simply means the red variety), the
result is a mild sweet sauce. If you cannot find the finger sized Thai
peppers, you could easily substitute Mexican jalapenos.
If you make it with prik ki nu (mouse-dropping chilies, or ‘Thai hots’),
then the sauce will have a hot bite to it. In this form I prefer it made
with green chilies, but on aesthetic grounds you could easily use red
chilies. If Thai chilies aren’t available, then you could substitute
habaneros or Scotch Bonnet chilies.
These sauces are made commercially by a small factory near our home, and
these recipes are simple enough to keep the prices down and minimize the
need for labor or expensive equipment.
Pickled garlic can be purchased in most Asian grocers, or you can make your
own using the simple method explained here. Using pickled garlic and
chilies mellows the flavors. Also in this case the sauce is thinned with the
pickling liquor used for pickling the chilies, and this gives it an extended
shelf life. However, if you intend to consume it rapidly, then you could
substitute tamarind juice, which has a slightly more complex flavor.
Method:
A week before you intend to make the sauce you must prepare the pickled
ingredients. If you are making the sweet sauce, then de-stem your chilies
(prik chi fa daeng), and split them in half lengthwise, and discard the
seeds; chop coarsely until you have a cup of chopped chili; lace it in a
1-pint preserving jar; and fill the jar with rice vinegar. Cap and keep for
at least a week.
If you are making the hot variety, you will find it too tedious to dispose
of the seeds, so simply de-stem, chop the chilies, and pickle in the same
way.
Next prepare your kratiem dong (pickled garlic). You make up a pickling
liquor consisting of 2 cups of rice vinegar, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon
of palm sugar, and half a teaspoon of MSG (this latter is optional but
recommended). Peel your garlic, slice it, then three quarters fill a
preserving jar, and fill it up with the pickling liquor. Keep in a cool
place for a week.
The sauce is then made with the following ingredients:
10 parts drained pickled chili
5 parts palm sugar
3 parts vinegar (use the liquor that pickled the chilies)
2 parts drained pickled garlic
These are placed in a liquidiser (blender) or food processor and processed
to a sauce-consistency.
Bottle in a well sealed container. It will keep for about 6 weeks.
If you make it using tamarind juice instead of vinegar at the final stage,
then consume within a week and keep refrigerated.
Category: Asian Recipes
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