Ginger-Chilli Paste - Home-Made Spices

Ginger Chili paste is a healthy spicy paste for spicing up your recipes. You can cook, saute, or fry your preparation and then, add this paste while spicing up your dish at the end stage. It is a healthy and hygienic thing in place of those market-made pastes which are seasoned by adding other preservatives and flavors. So, keep this homemade paste ready at hand for preparing your breakfast dishes or all those curry dishes needed for your meals.

How To Prepare Ginger-Chili Paste

It is very simple. Procure the ingredients and grind them in your mixer/grinder to a paste. And, store the paste in a tight-lid container in your refrigerator for daily use up to 10 days. 

Ingredients for Ginger-Chili Paste

1. Ginger (raw) 100 grams

2. Green Chili   100 grams

3. Turmeric Powder 1/2 t/spoon

4. Salt powder   1 teaspoon

Step-By-Step Preparation Instructions

1. First of all, you need to wash the ginger and dry it for some time. It should be completely dry before using it.
2. Chop the ginger pods into small pieces for easy grinding. Remove any bad portions from it.
3. Remove the top caps of the chilies and cut them into pieces. Each one can be cut into 2 or 3 parts depending on the length. (Ensure the chilies that you use are also fresh and not wet.)
4. Now, put all the four ingredients in your grinding jar and grind them to paste without adding water. No need to make it into a very smooth paste. A bit roughness is okay.
5. You may need to grind it 3, 4 times if the ginger is hard (mixing thoroughly during the intervals), without adding any extra water, so as to store it for 10 days.

Now, your Ginger-Chili paste is ready for use. Remove the paste from the grinder jar and store it in a tight lid container. You can draw from it with a dry spoon whenever you need it. One spoonful is enough for making spicy dishes for a family of 4 to 5 persons.

If you want to use it along with the pepper, coriander, cumin mixed spice powder, then you may halve the quantities of both those spice mixtures to prepare your dishes tasty and healthy.

You should add this paste or the spice powder while your preparation is still on the flame. After adding the mix, you need to fry or saute the recipe for one more minute or at least for half-a-minute to make it tasty.

Home-Made Spices - Multi-Purpose Spice Powder

A multipurpose spice powder that can be used as your sambar/rasam powder as well as a masala powder to spice up all your cuisines. I prepare my Rasam, Sambar, and all my vegetable curries or even breakfast dishes often using this spice powder.

Preparing this powder is very simple by grinding only 4 types of spice ingredients and a bit of lentil in a mixer-grinder.

Ingredients Required for Rasam-Cum-Curry Powder

1. Black Pepper 50 grams

2. Cumin seeds  50 grams

3. Coriander seeds 50 grams

4. Red Chili (dry) 20 to 25 nos.

5. Yellow Pigeon split lentil 75 grams

Step-by-Step Preparation of Home-Made Spice Powder

Step 1: If you can dry all these ingredients in the hot sunlight for some hours, it is well and good. Otherwise, you need to dry them in a hot pan. For this purpose, light your stove and place a deep frying pan on it. After it gets heated, decrease the flame to the minimum level and heat the ingredients one by one. You only need to get them dry so that they can be ground into a powder. After each one gets heated, remove it into a large plate. And, follow the same procedure until all ingredients are done with. Pour all the heated ingredients into the same plate. The lentil may take some extra time. But everything gets done within 5 minutes.

Step 2: Cool the hot ingredients for some time so that they become warm enough to be ground. They may cool down within 10 to 15 minutes. Touch them with your hand and ensure that when you put them in a grinding jar, the jar will not get warm and hot.

Step 3: Now, put those ingredients in the jar and grind them to powder. But, do not make the powder too soft. It should be a dry free-flowing powder to enjoy the spiciness of your dish.

Step 4: Remove the powder from the grinder into a bowl and allow it to cool. Or, you may let it cool in the grinder itself for some time, stirring it with a spoon 2, to 3 times at intervals. After it gets cooled, transfer the powder into any tight-lid container and use it as and when required with a spoon.

How To Use This Multi-Purpose Powder

1. If you are preparing the Rasam dish (a kind of liquid taken with food for better digestion purposes), you need to simply add this powder as it is according to your requirements along with a small quantity of tamarind, salt, and turmeric in a bowl of water and bring it to the boiling point.

2. For preparing other vegetable curries, and breakfast dishes like Upma, Oats, and even meat dishes, you need to fry this powder in some cooking oil along with the other ingredients that you may be adding before cooking the recipes.

I hope you will enjoy the taste of any food prepared with this spice-powder just like me.