Garlic Chili Oil
This recipe is loosely based on Hon's chili oil. Hon's is a Vancouver/Richmond, BC institution. We were very sad when their Chinatown location closed. It is, essentially, a Hong Kong style noodle-in-soup restaurant with dumplings, fish balls, fried tofu, greens with oyster sauce and BBQ pork as standard fare. Their chili oil is very good so we have bought it on occasion but still prefer to make our own to tweak it in any direction we like.
We will be infusing the oil with the flavour of the garlic then removing the garlic and adding the dried spices. Fresh garlic stored in oil can cause botulism, which is something you don't want to mess with.
- 250 milliliters neutral oil with a high smoke point (about 1c, we used sunflower)
- 4 cloves garlic (peeled)
- 4 tablespoons red chili flakes
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- sichuan peppercorns
- star anise
- sesame seeds
- fennel seeds
- fresh ginger, julienned (if you used this, treat it like the garlic)
- toasted sesame oil (you can add this at the very end if you like sesame flavour)
Put the oil and the garlic (and optional ginger if you are going in that direction) in a small pan over very low heat and cook for about 30 minutes. We are infusing the flavour into of the garlic into the oil but we don't want to be browning the garlic.
Put the chili flakes and the salt (and optional other spices) into a heat-tempered glass jar and mix them together. Scoop the garlic out of the oil and save it to use in something else - it should be sweet like garlic confit - great on a pizza, in a salad dressing, etc. Put a metal spoon in the jar to conduct the heat (as I did in the video) so you don't break the jar. Pour the oil into the jar (can add sesame oil now) and loosely cap it with a lid. Let it sit for at least an hour.
We don't strain our chili oil, we like to leave the chili flakes in, but you can do that if you like.
Not hot enough? Add more chili flakes. Too hot? Add more oil.
Congee recipe.
