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1
Place chiles in a bowl and cover with hot water.
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2
Keep chiles submerged for 30 minutes or more.
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3
Heat a small heavy skillet over medium high heat and dry roast coriander seeds (about 3 minutes), cumin seed and peppercorns (about 1 minute each).
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4
Use a spice grinder to grind the spices together into a powder.
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5
Mortar and Pestle Method: Place ground spices in mortar, add lemongrass, coriander roots and galangal and pound to a paste.
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6
Add lime zest to blend.
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7
Add garlic, shallots and salt and pound to a smooth paste.
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8
Transfer to a bowl and set aside.
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9
Drain chiles, place in mortar, and pound to a paste.
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10
When chiles are fairly smooth, add shrimp paste and pound together.
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11
Add reserved spice paste and pound together.
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12
Blender Method: Chop coriander roots,galangal,garlic and shallots fairly fine.
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13
With blender running, add to blender.
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14
Add spices, lemongrass, lime zest, salt and shrimp paste and continue to blend until you have a paste.
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15
It may be necessary to stop and scrape down sides of blender.
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16
Add a bit of chile soaking water if mixture seems very dry.
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17
Drain chiles, reserving liquid.
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18
Add to blender with enough soaking liquid to blend into a thick paste.
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19
Store in refrigerator (should keep a couple of months) or I freeze in an ice cube tray and transfer to a freezer bag when frozen.
