Schezwan Sauce

Ingredients:

• 10-15 medium sized Garlic pods, peeled
• 10-12 Red chillies
• 3 tbsp. finely chopped Garlic
• 1 tbsp. finely chopped Ginger
• 1 tbsp. finely chopped Celery(or thick Coriander stems)
• 2 large Tomatoes, roughly chopped
• 1 tbsp. Tomato Sauce(optional)
• 1 tsp Soya Sauce
• 1 tbsp. Vinegar
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp Pepper powder
• Salt to taste
• 2-3 tbsp. Oil

Method:

• Remove the stems of red chillies and soak them in warm water for half an hour. You can even remove the seeds if you cannot bear the heat.

• Grind the soaked red chillies with garlic pods to a fine paste.
• Grind chopped tomatoes to a smooth puree.
• Heat oil in a pan/kadai and add finely chopped garlic and sauté it nicely for a minute. Add finely chopped ginger and celery and sauté nicely until the raw smell of all the ingredients go away.
• Add pureed tomatoes and let it simmer for a while and then add ground red chili- garlic paste and fry nicely until the raw smell of tomatoes and red chili- garlic paste goes away and it leaves the oil in the edges

• Add tomato sauce(if using), vinegar, soya sauce, sugar, white(or black) pepper powder and salt and mix nicely and let it simmer for another 2-3 minutes. The sauces do have certain amount of salt, so add salt accordingly.
• If the sauce is very thick you can add some water and simmer again to get a thick sauce consistency of your requirement. I usually keep it thick so that it can be stored well for sometime.

 

• Cool the sauce and store it in an air tight container in refrigerator. You can easily keep it for a week in refrigerated when no water is added to it.