Smoky Chipotle Paste

Chipotle paste recipe

I love spicy stuff and the price of supermarket chilli paste always annoys me as it is so expensive and you only get a tiny jar! After some experimentation I settled on this one. A more fiery paste than your regular chipotle paste but that's no bad thing. Also it's very easy to make

You need:

Ten dried chipotle chillis
Two/three dried morcilla chillis (for dark depth although these are optional)
5/6 cloves of garlic
Small onion or half a big one
One scotch bonnet or habanero
Two tablespoons of sun dried tomato paste (regular will do if stuck)
Heaped teaspoon of smoked paprika
half teaspoon cumin
quarter teaspoon allspice
Quarter teaspoon dried oregano
Salt and pepper to season
Optional - 6-8 black beans or black eyed beans. (for added thickness)

Don't worry too much on the quantities as you can change these to suit your tastes. You don't really need the morcilla chillis, I add these for the dark colour they give. You can use more or less garlic as you wish. You can also use more tomato paste to calm the heat a bit if you're a bit of a scaredey cat :O).

Method:

Remove the stems and toast the dried chillis in a hot heavy bottomed pan till you can smell the dark chilli goodness

Boil some water and pour enough in a bowl to cover the toasted chillis. Add chillis to bowl. Leave for about half an hour to allow them to soften. Only use enough water to cover the chillis as we will use this water as a chilli stock later on.

Finely chop garlic, onion and scotch bonnet. Simmer gently with a pinch of sea salt in a little rapeseed oil till onions have softened.

Remove Chillis from bowl and using a spoon/fingers/blunt knife scoopout the seeds then place in food processor with the fried onions, garlic and scotch bonnet. Add paprika, cumin, allspice, tomato paste and a pinch of sea salt with a good glug of the preserved chilli water.

Whizz mixture up in processor for thirty seconds, open and have a look. If very thick add a little more of the chilli water. Whizz in blender again. You want a not too thick mixture. Dont worry if you make it too runny as the next step will sort that.

The important final step. Cook your mixture gently in a pan until it thickens and becomes more paste like (add oregano at this point). Remove and stick in a sterile jar. Keeps for a couple of weeks once opened if kept in a fridge.

You can scale up if you want to make loads more. You can dump a large teaspoon in a jar of mayonnaise and tada, chipotle mayo. Stick it in chillis and all manner of things
Enjoy the smokey fire!!