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Epicurious

Ugly Baby’s Red Curry Paste

Gloved hands grinding red curry paste with stone mortar and pestle.
Photo by Alex Lau

Chef Sirichai Sreparplarn of Brooklyn's Ugly Baby doesn’t believe in using food processors for making curry paste, but we won’t stop you from using one. He also prefers a blend of two parts shorter dried chiles (prik haeng) and one part longer chiles (prik chee fah), but any Thai chile will work.

Cooks' Note

Curry pastes are best consumed the day they are made, but you can freeze any leftovers up to 1 month.
Prik haeng chiles can be found at most Asian markets and will often be labeled as dried Thai chiles or just dried chiles. Prik chee fah chiles are much harder to source; the next best equivalent is Mexican puya chiles.

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