Yeah, I was surprised to see garlic in Z&Ys recipe without an acidic component aside (ginger maybe), but they do grate it.
How high do you heat the olive oil?
Does the numbing or Sichuan peppercorns aroma stick around longer?
This is great! And I also liked the linked article about Nam Phrik which had a link to Dill Magazine .
Are olive oil and sesame oil common in chili oil? Why not vegetable oil? Can you tell?
I made chili oil with bay leaf, sesame seeds and a bunch of spices/aromatics and have to admit - I don’t really love using it, although I feel it’s legit: https://thewoksoflife.com/how-to-make-chili-oil/
It tastes really strongly of bay leaf and doesn’t have that nice umami flavor that you get from most chili oils. I was pretty careful with the oil temperature, so I’m not sure what factors play role.
The best chili oil sauce I’ve ever had was made by friends of mine; the wife in the couple hails from Sichuan province (I want to say Chengdu), and he’s Taiwanese American. Their recipe is quite simple:
She stressed that the choice of chili flake and the control of the oil temperature are key. I was surprised that she actually uses Kirkland chili flakes and heats the oil to about 355F, then pours it over the peppers (and sometimes Sichuan peppercorn).
Cool to room temperature, mix in soy sauce, sugar and raw minced garlic. Be careful with the sugar as it will become stronger as it dissolves. The ratio of soy sauce, sugar, and garlic is to taste.
I was gifted a jar of this sauce and it is pretty darn amazing. Makes everything taste better. Much better than my own attempt at chili oil, and less complicated. I’m going to try this with some facing heaven chilis I have.
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Beautiful! So no annatto/achiote seeds? This reminds me of the chili crisp thread, but your color is WAY better!
Nope, not in these recipes 
Is that a typical ingredient in Chinese chili oil?
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Not that I’m aware of, but Presunto mentioned it above. Here is a picture of chili crisp I made (on the right) and I really didn’t like the color.
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Neither the fragrance nor numbing were terribly prominent, though I don’t think I’ve ever made it with super fresh Sichuan peppercorns.
I am putting this stuff on everything! Avocado toast, quesadillas…soon, eggs
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As a reference, for that much oil I used around 3 tbsp. soy sauce, 1 1/2 tsp sugar, and two finely grated cloves of garlic. I started with maybe 1 c. whole dried chilies and a scant tbsp. of Penzey’s Sichuan peppercorns, which are quite pungent.
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Hyperbowler, I keep the heat the lowest possible.
Boohoo… the very last of my Chilean smoked peppers. Chile is not on my travel list in the next couple of years. Hopefully 3 years from now.
They are still so intense after all these years. I had to stand back a couple of times. Had to sneeze, too. I snipped the peppers and only added good olive oil. Not eating it any time soon, they need some time to steep. Nothing else besides oil. I want to taste the pure flavour of aji de cabra.
One of the wonderful chilli stalls at the market in Patagonia.
My chilli haul from this market walkabout. Next time I will only buy the whole smoked goat’s horn. My rucksack weighed 5kg/11lbs on the way to Chile. On the way back it was 2kg/4.5lbs heavier. The extra weight was all chillies.
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I find the Sichuan peppercorns in stir-fries to have a potent but transient effect–maybe five minutes or a bit more–so, not like with really hot chiles.
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There’s (at least) a brand of Sichuan peppercorn oil, restaurants use it. It makes you appreciate how fresh the ingredients must be for it to be shelf stable.
Now that I think of it, I’ll update my note to recall that, yes, the effect of the Sichuan peppercorns does last longer–like, I think I can tell for maybe 20-30 minutes that I had some. The thing is, they lack the sharpness and “burning” effect that can linger longer in the “pain” dimension that comes with very hot chiles, so it’s more subtle than chiles, not to mention altogether different and, it seems, unique.
Very true! Herbs and spices play with the senses in ways other than taste and smell:
- Capsaicin, the chemical that gives chilis heat, activate pain receptors, so you get that “burning” sensation.
- Hydroxy alpha sanshool, the chemical in Sichuan peppercorns and sansho peppercorns, gives what’s often referred to as a “numbing” sensation. It mainly operates on sensory receptors that deal with mechanical, rather than pain, stimulation. A study a few years back quantified this and found the numbing was similar to if you had a mechanical device vibrating ~50 times per second (imagine a tuning fork or a cell phone vibrating really fast).
- Note that the numbing of Sichuan peppercorns is different than the “numbing”/loss of pain you get from anesthetics or foods containing eugenol like tarragon or cloves.
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Is it hot?
Drizzled over cream cheese with plenty of chili sediment, lots of scallion greens, and served spread on 6-seed crackers. Divine after a few bourbons.
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I made chili oil for the first time a few weeks ago using Fuchsia Dunlop’s recipe (linked in the OP), which is quite easy to make. I used some Korean ground red pepper that I had in my freezer.
I like it. It’s got a nice toasted chili flavor and a little bit of nutty sesame from the sesame seeds. Not very hot though, just a bit of heat.
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