Cili boh is a red chilli paste, made with dried red chillies, and is an essential ingredient in Singapore, Malaysia and many of their neighbours.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
What is Cili Boh?
It’s a red chilli paste. Or, in American speak, red chili pepper paste.
You know when you’re cooking South East Asian dishes (especially stir-fries), and the recipe calls for chilli paste? This is what we would use.
Indonesians might reach for this, sambal oelek (on LinsFood) or sambal balado, Singaporeans and Malaysians will reach for cili boh.
Cili Boh Recipe
You might be familiar with the Red Chilli Paste I posted on LinsFood over 10 years ago.
In the LinsFood red chilli paste, we add onion, garlic, candlenuts and palm sugar. We then give it a low and slow cooking time for the most delicious and addictive red chilli paste you’ll ever come across!
Our cili boh recipe is the lean and mean version of that. We’ll be using just red chillies, water to soak, oil or water to blend, and optional salt. This is what we’ll be doing:
- Remove the seeds (rather painstaking process).
- Bring to a simmer with water, and leave to soak for 30 minutes.
- Scoop the chillies out, as opposed to straining (this way, we’ll leave most of the seeds behind).
- Place in a blender and blend away with water or unflavoured oil (like any vegetable oil).
That’s it.
Ingredients
First thing to note is that there is no single authentic cili boh recipe. I remember going to the wet market with my grandma in Holland Drive (Singapore), and buying fresh cili boh made by this old Indian lady, with her trusty batu giling (explanation below).
She’d have buckets of soaked dried red chillies by her just waiting to be ground to order. And she ground them with water.
Since cili boh was traditionallly made using batu giling, it is also sometimes called cili giling. The Indonesians call it cabe giling, as chillies are called cabe in Indonesian.
So what do you need to make cili boh?
- dried red chillies
- water
- vegetable or other neutral oil
- optional salt
Some people will add onion or garlic, it’s all good. But the most basic version wants just dried red chillies.
Dried Red Chillies
Not all chillies are created equal. So get to know your chillies. If you are in the West, chances are, you’ll have access to so many different kinds.
Here in the UK, the list is seemingly endless. However, many, many Asian shops do not name their dried chillies, so the only way to know how hot they are, is to try them! Good luck!
But there are also many online shops selling dried red chillies, including Amazon storefronts. Whatever you do, stay clear of the smoked variety, like chipotles.
Some Examples
These are just some examples of dried red chillies you can use to make cili boh:
- Kashmiri Chillies: genuine Kashmiri chillies are super, super mild. But what tend to be sold outside of Kashmir are just generic, long dried red chillies. So they tend to pack a bit of heat. You can read more about Kashmiri chillies here, on my other blog, LinsFood.
- Dried Anaheim: mild
- Pasilla: super mild
- New Mexican Chillies: broad label covering a few types, mild
- Guajillo: mild-ish
- Chili de à rbol – spicy
- Dried Cili Padi – spicy
And so many, many more.
Water or Oil for Blending?
Either will do. Cili boh made with water will be slightly runnier and freeze better. You can store it up to 3 months.
Cili boh made with vegetable oil will keep longer in the fridge, be thicker and doesn’t freeze as well. All this means is that it will not be a solid block. But it’s still safe to freeze, but only up to a month.
What do I use? I use oil to blend my cili boh. I use it so much that it doesn’t last more than a month.
Note
Blending your chillies with oil will create a lighter coloured chilli paste as it becomes an emulsion. This will soon settle down to a deep red.
You’ll also need to stir the chillies a few times to help with the blending when using oil, as its viscosity will mean that things will “get stuck”.
What is Batu Giling?
Beacuse we love languages on LinsFood sites!
- batu = stone (ba like in far, tu like in put)
- giling = roll (gee – layng)
So rolling stone.
No Mick Jagger was harmed in the translation of.
Batu giling is made of stone and has 2 parts, the base, which a thick rectangular piece of stone. And a long, thin cylindrical piece, also made of stone.
So you place your spices or herbs on the base and grind them up by rolling the other piece back and forth.
Batu giling is known as batán in South America and sil-batta in many parts of South Asia.
- In South America, batán refers to the long solid base and uña is the grinder.
- In Hindi, sil refers to the base, while batta or nora is the grinder, so another name for it is sil-nora.
How to Use Cili Boh?
This Malay, Eurasian and Nyonya red chilli paste is what you’d use when a recipe calls for a teaspoon here and a teaspoon there of chilli paste or ground chillies.
You could also use cili boh to replace fresh chillies in a recipe.
Or, use it in place of the dried red chillies when making a spice paste that calls for them. So instead of soaking the chillies and adding them with the aromatics, drop a teaspoon or two of cili boh.
Here are some recipes using cili boh or that you can use it in:
How to Store?
You can store cili boh in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. After grinding it down, pour it into a clean jar or any container and place in the fridge.
To ensure that it lasts the whole 2 weeks and even slightly longer, cover it with a thin layer of vegetable oil. Each time you take some out, top it up with more oil.
The layer of oil will discourage bacteria, making your red chilli paste last longer.
To me, the best way to store cili boh is to freeze it. And as you can see in the image and video, I suggest freezing in little portions, so you can take out only what you need.
No ice cube trays? Open freeze spoonfuls of the chilli paste on a baking tin for 2 hours. Then, slip the frozen pieces into a freezer-proof bag and store for up to 1 month if oil based. If water based, up to 3 months.
FAQs
Yes, you can use fresh red chillies but your cili boh will be just slightly lighter in flavour. This is because dried chillies have a deeper and more concentrated … everything!
Your cili boh can be as spicy or as mild as you want it to be. The type of chillies you use will determine this.
So get to know your dried red chillies. If you use dried scotch bonnets or Carolina reapers, then your red chilli paste is going to be really, really pedas! That’s spicy in Malay.
No.
Sambal oelek simply means a sambal that’s been pounded. Technically, it doesn’t refer to a particular type of sambal. But the sambal oelek that the West thinks is THE sambal oelek is made up of chillies, salt and an acid (vinegar or citrus juice). Read more here on LinsFood.
On top of that, sambal oelek as people in the West know it, is made with fresh chillies while cili boh is made with dried red chillies.
It’s all in the language. In British English, we say and spell it as chillies, instead of chili peppers. So countries that have a profound British influence like Singapore, Malaysia and Australia, will call and spell it as such.
Cili is the Malay spelling of chilli.
And there you have it. Make some today, freeze part of it, and you’ll always have some cili boh to use in the kitchen!
If you like the recipe and article, don’t forget to leave me a comment and a rating! Thank you!
And if you make the recipe, share it on any platform and tag me @azlinbloor, and hashtag it #linsfood
Lin xx
Cili Boh Recipe
Equipment
- saucepan
- utensils as needed
- jars or ice cube trays for storage
Ingredients
- 100 g dried red chillies
- hot water
- 125 ml vegetable oil or slightly more, as needed
- 1 tsp salt optional, but helps with preservation a little
Instructions
- Put the kettle on with enough water to fill a small saucepan.hot water
- First thing we need to do is get rid of as many seeds as we can. Cili boh is traditionally a smooth chilli paste, with no seeds.You can do 1 of the following, ideally with gloved hands:1. Break the chillies with your fingers and shake the seeds out.2. Snip the chillies lengthwise and scrape out the seeds.This is the tedious part of the recipe. It takes me about 15 – 20 minutes to do the amount here.If you're not too bothered about appearance, just break the chillies shake as many seeds out as possible, and let the soaking get rid of more.100 g dried red chillies
- Place the seedless chillies (or not) in a small saucepan and top with the hot water you've just boiled.
- Bring to a simmer and cook for 1 minute. Turn off the heat, cover and leave to soak for 30 minutes.We want the chillies very, very soft for a smooth paste.
- At the end of soaking time scoop out the soaked chillies either with your gloved hands or with a spatula and place in the blender. No need to rinse.This way, the seeds that have been released during soaking will be at the bottom of the pan.
- Add the oil and optional salt and blend for about 5 minutes until you have a super smooth paste.Store as described in the article above.I'd store half in the fridge, and the other half in the freezer in small amounts.125 ml vegetable oil, 1 tsp salt
This is so easy and the taste is much better than the store-bought chili.
I will make more of this and send it to my friends as a gift.
This sauce was fantastic! The recipe was easy to follow and it turned out amazing. I can’t wait to make it again!!!
I made this Cili boh and enjoyed it! It was very flavorful – thank you.
I frequently use red chili paste in my cooking, and couldn’t wait to try this. It was so so good!
I made the sauce with Spanish Choricero dried chilli peppers, and it was fantastic! I love a homemade spicy touch in my eggs!
Amazing just what I was looking for.
Awesome!