Homemade Basic Rempah (Spice Paste)

It is school holiday therefore I've ample time on hand to prepare something which I've plan for quite some time...cooking rempah!! You must be thinking making rempah doesn't require much time or effort, anytime can make it right??!! As I am making a large batch at a go, the slicing and cooking process took me a bulk of the time, quite time consuming actually. Hahaha I think my next rempah preparation will be in December school holidays, if my current stock can last till then! Thanks Alan for sharing his generic rempah recipe, it is a very versatile spice paste recipe which can be used as a base for curry, laksa lemak paste, achar, satay peanut sauce etc. At the end of the post I've shared a Nasi Lemak Sambal recipe by using the basic rempah!

Basic Spice Paste...no sugar, salt or belacan added at this stage

getting ready all the ingredients for slicing before blending into paste

took me quite some time to get all these sliced up! *sweat* this is only the beginning! *gasp*

from raw orangy paste and sautéing till dark and glistering with oil separated!

After 1 hour of frying, yielding approx. 1.6 kg of awesome rempah

Ingredient (yields approx. 400gm)

• 5 red chilli, roughly sliced *
• 10 dried red chillies, soaked till softened *
• 5 candlenuts, roughly chopped
• 15 shallots, peeled and sliced
• 5 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
• 4 stalks of lemongrass, lower 1/3 whitish portion, sliced
• thumb length knob of ginger, sliced
• thumb length knob of galangal, sliced
• thumb length knob of turmeric root, sliced
• 3/4 cup rice bran oil

* I've removed some of the seeds as I do not want the paste to be too spicy, you can opt to retain them :)

Note : I've increased the proportion (x4) of the ingredients and the cooking process took me about 1 hour. The final cooked rempah weighed approx. 1.6 kg. Thereafter I divided them into 200gm each, packed and freeze.

Method

1. Using a food processor, blend all the ingredients, except oil, into a paste. *do not add water!! drizzle in some oil instead to ease the blending process. 
2. Heat cooking oil in a wok over medium heat.
3. Scoop the blended spice mixture into the hot oil. Saute the mixture over medium low heat until fragrant and oil begins to separate from the paste. *took me a approx. 1 hour to obtain a dark, glistering paste.
4. Cool down the rempah completely before storing and freeze in desired portions for future use. 

Transforming the basic rempah to make some Nasi Lemak sambal!! 

Nasi Lemak Sambal
Ingredient

• 250gm basic rempah
• 50gm gula melaka, finely chopped
• 100ml thick tamarind liquid (dissolve 1 heap tbsp in some water)
• 1 tsp toasted belachan powder (optional)
• salt to taste

Method

1. Place rempah in a heated pan. Add in tamarind liquid, gula melaka and belachan is using. 
2. Cook over low heat and stirring constantly till sugar is well dissolved.
3. Add in salt to taste.
4. Remove from heat. Cool down before serving.