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We love, but rarely cook, asian. It's one of those things that I'm happy to let all those wonderful little restaurants do better, since I haven't managed to absorb all those exotic ingredients and techniques.

Anyway, my wife recently made a version of classic sesame noodles which was a bit under-heated for my taste, so I went to the cabinet and jacked up my portion with some additional oil.

She had bought a small bottle of one of the standard brands available in all asian markets.

All of a sudden, I'm focusing on the oil. Unlike adding plain chilis, the oil distributed a lovely even bit of burn all over the dish, increasing my enjoyment enormously.

This brought to mind the note from a while back, regarding Gary's personal oil stored at LTH. I haven't been able to get there yet, but I'm wondering, what makes a great chili oil, and can I make it too? I figure my little bottle from the store is just the gateway to chili oil happiness.

Would love recipes or brand/type recs. for other chili oils.

I did a quick Google search resulting in several links to recipes. The most common is China Moon Chili Oil recipes with some variations. I know Gwiv's chili oil is based upon the The China Moon Cookbook by Barbara Tropp.

Chili Oil Recipes

My favorite Asian hot oil is Ma-La Oil from the China Moon book Bruce mentioned. I use it in so many dishes, I'm surprised I'm not sick of it by now. It gets its heat from red chile flakes (I use piquin), although I use only about half of what the recipe calls for. The biggest problem with this recipe is that it calls for Szechwan peppercorns which are now illegal to import, but can still be found . I have about 5-year stash.

Bill/SFNM

Olio Santo

Mrb:

Your post specifcally mentions Asian chili oils and the so the following is only indirectly relevant and possibly nothing new to you. But...

I use olio santo, that is, olive oil flavoured with chilis (and optionally other ingredients) fairly often and have found that it has become especially useful since our little guy, Lucantonius has been eating (more or less) what we eat. I like heat and crave it regularly, Amata likes it too but I think needs it less often than I, and the little guy still can't deal with it. A little olio santo can be added at the table to a soup or pasta dish or greens or beans etc. and will give a nice, round, well-distributed heat for me without me having to stress the mouths and digestive systems of others sharing the meal.

A brand of olio santo that I got for a long time from Conte di Savoia is "Mantova". Mantova is a very good olive oil firm with a wide variety of products from the Provincia di Frosinone (just southeast of Rome, past the Alban Hills, a region whose oil was highly prized in Roman times). Lately, I haven't seen their chili oil but it will probably turn up again soon.

I used to get a really great chili-infused olive oil imported from Catalonia (I think it might have been from Lleida) but I haven't seen it in a long time and can't remember the name of the brand. Maybe I can find it on the web.

A

I know this is a discussion of chili oil per se, but when I make sesame noodles I find that a bit of chili paste with garlic tossed in gives it a nice kick without adding extra oil.

I've seen mantova chili oil on sale in small bottles at caputo's in elmwood park.

-ed

one other note, when I was at "terra cotta," a very good pizzeria in windsor, ontario, the owner brought us two homemade oils, one chile, one herb.

the herb was mild and fine, but the chile oil was amazing. Fiery, but with real flavor to it. The ingredients I saw were:

chile flakes, like at pizzerias across the world. These took up perhaps 40% of the bottle
garlic
sun dried tomatoes
rosemary
*possibly* allspice

and then a large assortment of peppers floating near the top. i saw habaneros, pequins, and thai chiles. There may have been others.

It was an amazing, amazing chile oil. I wanted my girlfriend to sneak the bottle into her purse.

-ed

True, but like everything else Gary touches it has been adapted long ago to suit his considerable tastes.

If you want to try some, then next time you go to Little Three Happiness, what LTH stands for, ask for some of Gary's oil. It is kept in the refrigerator available to those who ask.

Gary's Chili Oil
(Adapted from China Moon Cookbook)

I love this Chili Oil, it's more complex and flavorful than straight chili oil, but still has good heat. I use it in most everything, eggs, sauce, mixed with mayo, mops etc. The "goop" as Barbara Tropp calls the solids that sink to the bottom of the jar, are wonderful in everything from egg salad sandwiches to, well heck use your imagination.

1 cup dried red chiles, flakes, as hot and fresh as you can find
1/3 cup fermented black beans, coarsely chopped, not rinsed
5 cloves garlic, lightly smashed and peeled
5 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons ginger, fresh, minced
2 1/2 cups corn oil, or peanut oil
1/3 cup sesame oil, Japanese style

1. Combine all of the ingredients in a heavy, non-aluminum 2-2 1/2-quart saucepan. Rest a deep-fry thermometer on the rim of the pot. Over moderately low heat bring the mixture to 220, stir almost constantly. Gently simmer for 30-40 minutes, checking to ensure the temperature does not rise. Remove from the heat* and let stand until cool or overnight.

2. Scrape the oil and solids into an impeccably clean glass jar or plastic container.

Store at room temperature. (I store in the refrigerator)

Menu suggestions: Use the oil whenever you want to light a spark. The "goop" that settles to the bottom is a wonderful spicy addition to sauces, noodles, fillings, and marinades.

Note: It is best to use a deep-fry or candy thermometer as oil temperature is hard to judge and will burn quite easily.

* Oil is done when garlic turns light brown.

Enjoy,
Gary

I was fortunate enough to receive a container of Chili Oil from Gary at LTH last weekend. After letting it sit for a few days (upon Gary's recommendation) I cracked it open to dress up a "refrigerator dinner" (read: whatever is in the refrigerator is for dinner).

The oil & goop went great on a slice of pan-fried halloumi, some sliced radishes, green onions, and peppers. A little bit mixed in with some store-bought hommous was fantastic. But the coup de grace was how it lifted a simple bowl of steamed broccoli to new culinary heights. I have a feeling that my consumption of steamed greens will increase due to this oil.

The flavor is complex, and the heat is just right. Hot enough to let you know it's there, but not too hot to enjoy the food underneath.

I've printed this recipe for the day that I run out. If it doesn't come out quite right, I'm going to have to come up with some goods for barter.

Best,
Michael/EC

Gary's chili oil is great, perhaps the best thing at LTH. We've been lucky to receive bottles in the past and to barter for more, as my wife needs a regular supply of the stuff. She has a particular liking for the bits of black bean in there so will sometime add a few dry salted black beans to concoctions with it.

Of the store brands around, I'm pretty happy with the "youjia" brand put out by Hanguo Foodstuffs of Hanyuan Sichuan - especially the one with a bunch of sesame seeds floating on top - it has a great imbalance of solid stuff at the bottom to scoop out with the oil. We pick it up from the grocery store on broadway just north and around the corner of thai pastry with the attached parking lot (the name escapes me for the moment)

An interesting application of Gary's chili oil that wouldn't have occured to me if I hadn't drank all that beer: Use it to make popcorn. Instead of the canola or corn or peanut or whatever you would normally pop your kernels in, use a tablespoon of chili oil. You can go 50/50 regular/chili oils if someone who doesn't love spicy as much is going to be eating the popcorn, or, just make them their own popcorn.

Unbeknowneth,

Great idea! I've mixed my chili oil with butter to pour over popcorn, but never in the popping mix.

I know what my midnight snack is going to be tonight.

Enjoy,
Gary

Thanks to this thread, I have been using my chili oil to pop my nightly popcorn snack. I have been using about a 50/50 chili oil to olive oil ratio. I then add a tablespoon or two of butter and pop away in my Whirly Pop.

LTH,

I restocked the Gary's Chili Oil at 'Little' Three Happiness last evening. It seems to be going faster and faster. I used to leave a pint and it'd last a while, now I bring a quart and it seems to go quickly. I think next time I'll just bring 2-3 quarts in pint jars.

Speaking of LTH, my niece, who lives in San Francisco, is visiting for a couple of days. Her father, my brother, loves Tong Kiang in SF almost as much, if not as much, as I love LTH.

When I asked where she'd like to go to dinner last night her unexpected, but hoped for answer, "Why, 'Little' Three Happiness, of course, Uncle Gary." My brother raised his kids right. "

Enjoy,
Gary

Unbeknowneth,

At your suggestion tried 50/50 my chili oil/regular oil to pop popcorn, wow, why the heck didn't I think of this before. Nice spicy flavor but not in the least overpowering.

I often add chili oil to popcorn butter for topping or, if not chili oil, hot sauce/pepper flakes, BBQ dry rub, even have tried dried mustard, but simply never thought of mixing chili oil. I did try toasted (Japanese style) sesame oil mixed with regular oil to pop popcorn, once, it didn't work well. I may have used too much as the sesame oil was overpowering. So much so, that I lost my desire to try it again with a lesser amount.

Really good idea, thanks for posting it to the board.

Enjoy,
Gary

Re: Gary's oil, does it have to be a non aluminum saucepan? I'm not too picky about what my pots look like so a little discolouring is not as big a deal as buying a brand new pot just for one recipe.

But I need this chili oil SO bad, If needs be I will run down to Sheets N' Shit and pick up one!

I've been on a project in the backwoods of Wisconsin as of late, leading to a lot more cooking than usual out of a combination of boredom and lack of dining options.

A visit to the Madison farmer's market the other weekend lead me to pick up a small (5oz.) bottle of their chili oil, which I enjoyed - which lead me back to this thread with the thought "You know, I bet I can make something better".

A few notes from my brief experience -

1.) Buying the crushed red pepper at the grocery store was a mistake - ~$3.50 per 1.12oz jar, with no telling how long it'd been sitting there. Penzey's has 2 options on heat level and sells it for $12.40/lb. I ordered a pound, as I'm looking to make several batches until I'm happy with the results. (And of course, give away all the interim batches, as I'm sure I'm much pickier than many of my co-workers.)

2.) The local organic co-op (think Whole Foods, but tiny and very local) was the first place that I found with peanut oil in stock. It was Spectrum Brand, and unfiltered - the stuff smelled and tasted just like liquid peanuts. I found another store offering filtered oil and bought that too - using 1 cup of the unfiltered to 1.5 of the filtered - but I still think the unfiltered had too strong of a flavor. It made excellent peanut butter cookies the next day, but I won't use it for chili oil again.

3.) My next batch will be much bigger. Making only a single batch meant that I could use a smaller pot, but the thermometer didn't clip on properly and I was playing with it to get an accurate read the entire time - and this stuff has been a bit of a hit so far, so having extra to give away can't hurt.

My next batch will use Penzey's 40k scoville Pakistani crushed red pepper, only the filtered peanut oil, toasted sesame oil, and I'll have tracked down those pesky fermented black beans by then, too. (Not a common item around here. I'm having them shipped to me.)

I keep finding myself looking for excuses to use this stuff, it's definitely highly addictive. (I find myself using it on everything - bagels, corn, fried chicken...) I even ended up buying a copy of the China Moon Cookbook, just from the curiosity that this recipe provoked in me.

Thanks again for sharing your adaptation, Gary.

Szechwan Peppercorns are no longer illegal. You can get them from Penzeys and I think, I also Ming Tsai's web site. I agree that Barbara Tropps oils and other condiments are fantastic.

I tried to attach the link to Penzeys but was not successful. But if you search there, they're available.

They have nice Sichuan peppercorns at the Spice House in Evanston as well.

You might want to consider sending a small quantity to Gary of this batch. I'm sure he'd be interested in how the addition of those Pakistani crushed red peppers might taste.

I am really chili heat adverse, so your description of 40k scoville red peppers just sends me hiding.

Regards,

I'd be more than pleased to do so, I'll toss him an email after work.

Cathy - just as a point of reference, the normal Californa-grown crushed red peppers are 20,000 scovilles, so the Pakistani aren't -that- much hotter.

(Edit. Typo. Whoops.)

Thanks! Any mention of scovilles just sends me hiding!

Regards,
Cathy

Also at International Club on 40th & Pulaski. They were simply labeled as "Whole Peppercorns," but close inspection reveals that they are of the Sichuan variety. First time I bought them and tasted them, it freaked me out and I thought I had some sort of weird allergy, because I didn't realize that slight numbness and increased salivation they cause is normal.

I'd meant to post this last week but kept forgetting -

My copy of the China Moon cookbook arrived last week, and it was with some amusement that I learned that all of my scavenging for peanut oil was for naught - Tropp's first choice was just Mazola's corn oil, anyway!

I haven't placed an order from Penzey's yet due to general flakiness in my schedule, but when I can finally manage to get everything together and make a proper batch of oil, I'll hopefully have a tale of success to share.

So, after enjoying the chili oil at Sun Wah, and stumbling across the Gary's Chili Oil recipe, I decided to make a batch.

Some modifications:

1. I did not have red pepper flakes, but I did have dried Thai bird's eye chilis. Put a bunch in the food processor and chopped them up along with the garlic, ginger, and black beans.

2. I reviewed the original China Moon recipe, and ground up 2 T of Szechuan pepper corns to add to the mix.

3. Since the garlic was minced, it browned faster, so I cooked the oil at 220 F for 16 minutes. Reviewing the FDA guidelines on garlic and oil, this was a sufficient time to kill any potential botulism spores.

4. Sesame oil is quite delicate, so I added this after the oil had cooled to about 120 F.

Note: Thai bird's eye chilis are 50-100,000 Scoville units compared to 20,000 for crushed red pepper flakes. My batch of chili oil has quite a kick if you like that kind of thing.

Great stuff! Thanks for posting the recipe Gary.

Pete, I used a 2qt All Clad sauce pan with a Polder cooking thermometer, the one with the separate probe on a long wire. I had a clip from a broken candy thermometer, so I attached that to the side of the pot, tied a piece of kitchen twine around the probe where I wanted it to stop and slid the probe through the holes in the clip. It worked great, and the digital readout is much easier to read for accuracy than an analog candy thermometer.

Digging up this post to mention that Gary's chili oil has officially gone international and currently is being liberally used in the greater Stockholm region.

Gary was kind enough to supply me with a double-wrapped, transport-ready container of chili oil during our wonderful dinner at Honey1. Liquid restrictions being what they are these days on flights, the container was packed in my check-in luggage and my fingers were firmly crossed* for the duration of my flight back to Stockholm.

This stuff is delicious and so much more than spicy oil. The garlic, the fermented black beans, everything simply adds up to more than the sum of its parts! I've, of course, had it with chinese food but I've been reaching for the jar for the majority of my dinners lately, too. My favorite so far? It worked wonders with simple poached salmon the other night.

You Chicago-area LTHForum posters/readers have a variety of ways to obtain (or at least taste) this fantastic, homemade condiment: 1) beg, plead and hound Gary into giving you a batch, 2) ask hush-hush at Little Three Happiness for a little of Gary's Chili Oil, or 3) follow his simple-looking recipe posted above. One way or another, I can't imagine that you'll be disappointed!


* Last time I forgot to cross my fingers with liquids stowed in my check-in luggage, I ended up with a quart of maple syrup evenly distributed over all of my clothing...

Bridgestone,

So glad you are enjoying the chili oil, when you run out I may have to bring you a couple of quarts in person.

Thanks again for the gift of bacon, I have not tapped into it as of yet, though every time I open my refrigerator it winks and I smile back.

Enjoy,
Gary