This is a simple spice blend that I came up with when the summer was ending and I had a surplus of peppers from my garden. I was growing lemon grass and kaffir lime as well, so I took a bunch of everything and made this little guy. For this particular recipe I used a blend of Trinidad Scorpion peppers and some Serrano peppers that I had. You can change the type of peppers, but I would recommend keeping some that are stupid hot for the ratios in this recipe. It's got a nice bright flavor that has a pop of heat which doesn't linger too much. I added a little ginger and white pepper to it as well, to give it a more balanced rounded flavor.
The heat on this is not overwhelming but a solid base. Obviously you don't want to add too much to your items but it will give you a solid foundation. This goes great with fish and chicken, and pairing it with coconut milk or another rich flavor intensifies it as well. Enjoy.
Ingredients
Trinidad Scorpion Peppers 6 ea
Serrano Peppers 5 ea
Lemon Grass, chopped 6 stalks (1/2 cup)
Kaffir Lime Leaves, chopped 16 ea
Kaffir Lime zest 2 ea
Lime zest 2 ea
Ginger, peeled and grated 3 oz
White pepper 1/4 cup
Kosher Salt 1/4 cup
Orange zest 1 ea
Clementine zest* 2 ea
*If you don't have clementines just use one more orange, I had them on hand so I decided to incorporate them into this recipe.
Method of Procedure
Preheat your oven to 185 degrees.
Rinse your peppers and place them into the oven to dehydrate. It takes awhile to do this, at least 3 hours. Just throw them in there and check every hour until they start drying out, then switch to every 30 minutes. The lower the temp you do this at, the better the end product will be as you won't be cooking them, as much as drying them out.
Take your lemon grass and cut the greens off. Using a moderately heavy chefs knife, the flat, smack the lemon grass to break it making it easier to chop up. Chop finely.
Fine chop your kaffir lime leaves.
Peel your ginger with a spoon* and grate it into the lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves.
Zest all your citrus and save it for juicing in another recipe, no need to waste it.
Mix all the ingredients together and wait for your peppers to be dried.
Add the mixture to the peppers and dry out for an additional 2 hours. Stirring occasionally to make sure they don't stick.
Add the salt and pepper to the dehydrated mixture and run through a spice grinder.
*You can use a peeler or a knife, but a simple spoon peels ginger easier and quicker than anything else.
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