Freezing Spices

My mom was once a housewife who lived abroad as well. She knows how it feels like living with difficulty to find hometown spices. And now she's transferring her knowledge to her daughter who is living a life that she once had.

My freezer is not only filled with meat and frozen treats, but it's also full with frozen spices!

Yes, my mom taught me to keep every fresh spices that could dry or rot in refrigerator to be kept in freezer.

What spices did my mom suggests I keep in my freezer?

KAFFIR LIME LEAVES (DAUN JERUK)

If you don't keep in freezer this will definitely dry out. So, to keep it "fresh", put the lime leaves inside plastic bag and freeze it. Every time you need to cook with it, just take it out of the freezer and it will defrost in no time.

LEMONGRASS (SEREH)

The first time I was able to find lemongrass was in Sydney's Paddy's Market. And because I was afraid that I couldn't find it someplace else when I ran out of it, I decided to buy 3 bunch (each bunch consists of 7 sticks). Keep it in your freezer, no need to put it in plastic bags. Every time you need to cook with it, just take it out of the freezer and it will defrost in no time.

CHILLIES

I keep a lot of chillies in my freezer. In addition to that, I also keep basic cooking mix made out of red and green chillies. So you can imagine the amount of chillies in my kitchen! Meaning that I can't live without it. For chillies, I prepare cleaned ex-takeaway transparent food containers (or you can use plastic ziplock bags). Clean the chillies under running water and cut off the stem, to make it more effective when packing it. Put the chillies inside the containers and close the lid. If you want to use the chillies you can defrost it about 15 seconds in the microwave.