Recipe No 156 spice paste Original 2010 Adapted 2013

Balinese spice paste for chicken

Balinese cooking relies heavily on delicious, aromatic spice pastes. This is one of them. But you don’t need to be cooking Balinese food to use these pastes. Try them as a marinade. They freeze well, so you can make a large batch and have it on hand.

Adapted from Heinz von Holzen

Time

Prep

Total

Difficulty

Leveleasy

Yield

8 serves

Weight1000 g

Metric Imperial

Processes

  • Chilis, red, small, finely sliced (10 small)
    50 g
  • Shallots, peeled and sliced (4 small)
    225 g
  • Garlic, peeled and sliced (14 cloves)
    125 g
  • Lesser galangal (10 small)
    50 g
  • Galangal (12 small)
    60 g
  • Turmeric, raw (10 small)
    125 g
  • Candlenuts (½ cup)
    100 g
  • Palm sugar (¼ cup)
    50 g
  • Coconut oil (½ cup)
    150 g
  1. 01
    Combine.
  2. 02
    Process to a fine paste.
  3. 03
    Transfer to a saucepan.

  • Lemon grass, bruised (1 cup)
    67 g
  • Salam leaves (3 leaves)
    3 g
  • Water (250 ml)
    250 g
  • Salt (2¼ tsp)
    14 g
  1. 04
    Add to pan.
  2. 05
    Simmer until all water is evaporated and the paste is a golden color, about .
  3. 06
    Allow to cool.

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Notes

Traditionally, the Balinese make this paste using a coarse-stone pestle. If you’re not that motivated, use a food processor. Some of the tougher ingredients like galangal do not fully break down in the processor, though, so they do benefit from fine chopping.

The benefit of a mortar and pestle over a food processor is that the ingredients are squashed rather than chopped. This is significant. The process of pounding them squeezes the tasty juices out of the ingredient; compared with the process of chopping which simply reduces the ingredient to smaller pieces with many of the cell walls intact.

Try using a meat grinder, if you have one. Sometimes it works well.

Making ahead

Peel and slice all ingredients and store in an air-tight container in the fridge.

Storing

Keeps in the refrigerator for up to 7 days; freeze for 3 months

Categorisation

Category
marinade spice paste
Meal
component
Cuisine
balinese
Diet
high carb low cholesterol low protein vegetarian
Tags
balinese base be siap spice paste