Two of the best and most base flavors of any Asian or African-inspired dish are garlic and ginger. In many Asian countries, you can buy pre-made garlic-ginger paste, which you’ll always want to toast on the pan at the beginning of your cooking process to bring out all of its flavor. But what do you do if you don’t want to spend money on jarred paste or you don’t have a local Asian grocer? Here’s how to make it yourself.
You’ll just need two ingredients: a whole head of garlic and a whole ginger root. This will make about 8 servings of paste.
Start by peeling everything. You may also want to chop off the tough ends of your garlic cloves if you’re going to be using a food processor. Then there are two ways to combine everything that you can choose from based on your preference and the equipment you have available.
Food Process Method
If you have a food processor or a strong blender, you can roughly chop up your ingredients and add them in. Pulse the blender until everything is all blended up and pasty.
Handheld Method
If you don’t have a food processor or you want to work on your arm strength, you can also grate everything by hand. You can use a garlic crusher for the garlic, but this probably won’t work very well for ginger unless you have a really strong and sharp one. So, grate everything on a small grater into a bowl and mix to combine. Store in a jar in the fridge, or freeze in an ice cube tray for individual serving sizes.
