Ginger-Garlic Paste

I love to cook Asian foods and most of the time these foods require a combination of ginger and garlic.  Fresh ginger and garlic always gives the best taste, but sometimes when you're rushing to get dinner on the table it's one extra step that I dread. I seem to always forget to have these two items prepped when I'm getting my ingredients out to cook.  So having a pre-made ginger garlic paste in the fridge ready to go is so incredibly handy and time saving.  I just open a jar and spoon out as much paste as I need in a dish.  You can buy prepared ginger-garlic paste at some stores, but I find them lacking in flavor.  Plus I feel like I'm paying a premium for the convenience.  Buying my own garlic and garlic and whizzing it in the food processor with a little bit of canola oil and I have a much more fresh, flavorful paste for a fraction of the cost.

Ingredients:
Equal parts ginger and garlic. Some canola oil.

*Note:  I don't want to give actual amounts here because it all depends on how much you cook with ginger and garlic.  I use it so many Sri Lankan, Indian, Thai and Chinese dishes that I used 2 1/2 blubs of garlic and about a pound of cleaned ginger and 1/4 cup of canola oil.  This should last me about a week.  I usually use about 1-2Tbs of this mixture depending on the dish.

Directions:   Put all items into a food processor and blend until smooth.

Store in an air-tight container in the fridge for about a week.  Hope this helps make your cooking a littler easier.

Here is a bonus cooking tip to using ginger.  If you buy a lot of ginger and want to save it for a rainy day don't put it in the fridge.  All you have to do is clean the ginger, cut it into 2-3 inch pieces, put in a plastic food storage bag and freeze it.  I freeze pounds of ginger at a time and just take it out and use a microplane grater to grate the ginger into any dish I need it for.   Your ginger will last for months in the freezer without any problem.  But it is best to use fresh (never been frozen) ginger to make the ginger/garlic paste above.