Скачать или смотреть How to Rehydrate Dried Chilli: The Dried Chilli Paste Base for Sambal and Curries

When a spice paste or sambal recipe calls for dried chilli, it requires you to rehydrate it in water. The process can be quite cumbersome as you will need to remove the stems and seeds and then pound it in a mortar and pestle (old school) or use a food processor to blend it into a paste.

I recommend wearing rubber gloves, as capsaicin, which is in the chilli, can irritate your skin. If you were to prepare the chilli with your plain bare hands and rub your eyes, be prepared to run lots of cold water through your eyes! Trust me, I've done it numerous times and learnt my lesson!

Dried chilli is always spicier than fresh chilli and gives the sambal or spice paste a different flavour and colour. Many spice paste recipes also require mixing two types of chilli - fresh and dry. I have often modified recipes and replaced dried chilli with fresh chilli if I run out of rehydrated dried chilli!

There are many different ways to rehydrate chilli. Some will require you to boil it in a pot before hand, or roast the chilli in the oven. However, what I do is even simpler - basically remove seeds, rehydrate, blend and freeze in bulk. In this recipe, 200g of dried chilli derived 860g of rehydrated blended chilli (about 4x). This tells you that if a recipe asks for example, 10g of dried chilli, you can use about 40g of blended dried chilli. That is approximately 2.5 tbsps.

How to rehydrate dried chilli
Step 1: In this video, I used readily cut dried chillies. It REALLY saves time to use cut chilli, or not you will have to remove the stalks and veins. Therefore, if you are using regular dried chilli, you will need to tear out the stems, cut the chilli, remove and shake out the seeds. Deseeding reduces the spiciness. Just by shaking the colander, I managed to remove 20g of seeds!

Step 2: Transfer the chilies into a large bowl. Pour boiling water over the chilies until they are completely covered. Drain the rehydrated chilli after 30-45 minutes (or until softened).

Step 3: Wash the chilli through the colander about 4-5 times until the water runs clear. Chilli seeds will continue to come out. Another 20g of seeds came out! Remove any stems.

Step 4: Blend in food processor until fine. I have not added any water or oil because my food processor is powerful enough to not require any liquid.

Step 5: Remove from food processor. Transfer blended dried chilli into small containers to freeze. Alternatively, you can freeze it in an ice cube tray/silicone ice tray. When frozen, remove chilli cubes into a freezer bag/ziploc bag and store in freezer. When you need it, remove from freezer and thaw. You can use the chilli paste for your sambal or curry paste!

Note: If you want to make chili boh, add a dash of salt, oil and lemon juice (optional) to portion of blended dried chilli that you need!