As the garlic ginger paste was quite a fail I decided to try something else that allows fast access to ginger taste that is durable for longer. Initially I wanted to make oil, though blending the leftovers revealed one of the best asian pastes Ive ever tasted. Its one of the most amazing flavor bombs Ive tasted.

Ingredients

• 50g pealed ginger
• 50g spring onion
• 1 red thai chili
• 100-200g neutral tasting oil (I’m using rapeseed oil)
• 2g salt (for the paste, not oil!)

Instructions

Wash and dry the thai chili and the spring onions. Peel the ginger and cut off the stem of the chili. Either shred the ingredients down or cut them finely (not rough as in the picture above, I just took a picture of rough chopped ingredients for the header image as it just looks nicer that way). Don’t blend them at this stage, the end result will not be the same.

Place the ingredients in a heat resistant vessel (I used a smaller pot). In a different pot or pan, heat the oil.

Note: if you want to make only paste, use 100g oil. If you want to make paste and oil use 200g oil.

The oil temperature should be between 165 and 175 degrees. If you dont have anything to mesure it you can put a wooden spoon into the oil. Once you notice bubbles to form around it the oil is hot enough.

Once heated pour the hot oil over the other ingredients. If you make oi and paste (200g oil) you might want to pour only 50% of the oil in, stir and wait. After a minute pour in the other half and mix again. Note that the oil will foam, so ensure that our vessel is big enough. Let the mixture sit until the oil cooled down.

If you make oil sieve the oil and fill it in a bottle. Place the left overs in a blender. If you make only paste blend everything directly.

You could blend them as is, though to make it more durable I added salt. Taste wise I would add about 2% of the weight (ca 2g).

Tips

As you can see in the picture above I tried to blend the ginger in short pulses as I was too lazy to cut it. This was not ideal, cutting it fine or using a food processor (not a blender) is the better way to do it. Also note that the oil foamed up basically to the very top of this vessel, so rather be on the save way and choose a bigger one!

Usage

• I made this oil to sprinkle on top of ramen and I use it basically every time
• 125g yoghurt, 1tsp paste and a dash of salt results in an amazing dip or dressing
• any asian food where you would normally add ginger

v2

This time I tried a different ratio:

• 300g pealed ginger
• 300g spring onion
• 250g oil
• 1/4 seeded habanero
• salt to taste (for the paste, not oil)

I preheated the oil to 250 degrees, though this was too hot. Some ginger got golden brown which was noticeable in taste. The amount of ingredients were enough for 2x 250ml glasses paste and one small bottle of oil. This time I reduced the salt quite a bit. I forgot to measure it. I’m guessing it was in the 3-4% range.

v1

• 60g pealed ginger
• 30g spring onion
• 1 red thai chili
• 125g neutral tasting oil (I’m using rapeseed oil)
• 2g salt (for the paste, not oil!)

To test how long this paste could hold up in the fridge I added 10g of salt for the current batch. This makes the paste very salty on its own. Using it in recipes is not an issue as the flavor is very intense and you need only a little bit. The salty version did hold up for 3 weeks in the fridge without any issues though I ran out of paste so I could not test how long it would keep up in total.