Home-Made Schezwan Sauce

I love anything spicy. If you have been following this blog for some time, then you know what I am talking about. We are people who have spicy palates and we make anything and everything spicy so how can I skip on the spiciest Schezwan recipes when I m on Indo-Chinese Mania?

So here I have given the home made sauce which acts as a base for most of the Schezwan recipes. Though the color may scare you out, they are actually not that spicy as I have used Kashmiri chilies and tomato paste for enhanced color. This sauce has a shelf life of 1 month in refrigerator.

Ingredients:

Kashmiri Red chilies-25

Dried long red chilies-5*

Garlic-20 flakes, minced

Ginger-1 tbsp, minced

Tomato paste-1 tbsp

Soy Sauce-1/2 tsp

Vinegar-1 tsp

Pepper powder/Sichuan pepper (crushed)-1 /2 tsp

Sugar-1/2 tsp

Salt-as needed

Oil-1/2 cup

How It Happened:

1. Boil ½ liter of water add the kashmiri red chilies and the regular dried red chilies to it and let it soak for 30 minutes. Then drain the chilies and add it to the blender along with some of the water in which ti was soaked.

2. Grind it once, add more of the soaked water if needed and grind it to a fine smooth paste and set aside.

3. Heat half of the oil in a pan, add the minced garlic and cooked for a minutes or until they turn transparent.

4. Then add the minced ginger and fry until they turn slightly golden.

5. Now add the ground chili paste and stir well until all the oil is absorbed by the paste. Simmer the flame and keep sautéing it so that it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan.

6. Let it cook for 5-7 minutes. Add the tomato paste and mix well and drizzle in a tbsp of oil.

7. Let the mixture cook for 10 minutes, meanwhile keep adding the remaining oil little by little and keep stirring it.

8. After 2-5 minutes, the mixture will come together and will start leaving the sides of the pan while leaching out the oil.

9. Add in the soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper powder. Mix well and let it cook for 2 minutes.

10. Switch off the flame and let it sit until it cools completely. Transfer them to a clean dry container and store in the refrigerator. Use in schezwan preparations.

Notes:

* I have used regular dried red chilies without removing the seeds to add heat. But you can skip them and use kashmiri red chilies totally for mildly spicy sauce.

* If you can’t find kashmiri red chilies then use regular red chilies, but remove the seeds before soaking in water to reduce the spiciness.

* I have added tomato paste but if you can’t find them then use tomato sauce/ketchup.

* Both kashmiri red chilies and tomato paste has given a bright color to the sauce but again if couldn’t get enough color then you can add a pinch of orange food color.

* Do not reduce the oil as they are important for preserving. The oil should float on the top.

* Vinegar is optional but it helps in preservation.