Sichuan · Sauce
Hongyou (Sichuan Chilli Oil)
- Intermediate
- 25 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
Leads with aromatics blooming from the first bite, toasted, nutty warmth throughout, fading in warm spice.
Ingredients
- 70 g dried erjingtiao chillies, stems removed
- 30 g dried zidantou chillies, stems removed
- 500 ml rapeseed oil (caiziyou)
- 10 g huajiao, whole
- 15 g white sesame seeds
- 5 g salt
- 20 ml hot water
- 30 g ginger, sliced
- 2 spring onions, cut in lengths
- 60 g shallot, sliced
- 1 star anise, 4 cm cassia bark, 2 bay leaves and 1 cracked caoguo
Equipment
Wok
The skills inside
Allergen screen
Found: sesame
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Toast both chillies in a dry wok over low heat, turning constantly, until they smell of tobacco and snap rather than bend, about 4 minutes; stop while they are still deep red, because past that the oil tastes of ash. 4 min
- Cool, then pound coarse: flakes the size of coffee grounds with visible seed, not powder. Mix with the sesame, salt and hot water until the flakes look damp and clump slightly.
- Heat the rapeseed oil to 190C (375F), until its raw green smell burns off and the surface goes flat and shimmering, then fry the ginger, spring onion, shallot and whole spices until the ginger curls and turns biscuit brown; lift them all out.
- Let the oil fall to 150C (300F) and pour one third over the flakes: they should roar and foam up the bowl. At 130C (265F) pour the second third. At 110C (230F) drop the huajiao into the pan, swirl 20 seconds, and pour the last third through a strainer.
- Cover and leave a full day before using; colour keeps bleeding out of the flakes overnight and the raw edge goes with it.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Wok technique 28 recipes
- Everything went in dry and went in in order. Wet protein or wet vegetables drop the wok below the heat that browns, and what follows is a stew in a round pan however hard the burner is working.
- The wok stays loud from the first moment to the last. A wok that falls quiet has been overloaded, and the food in it is now boiling in its own liquid.
- Every piece is coated and glossy with no pooled sauce in the bottom of the dish: the sauce should cling by reduction and starch, not sit under the food.
- Vegetables keep their colour and a bite at the centre. Grey-green greens or a limp stem mean too long in the pan, and nothing later in the dish recovers them.
- It carries the faint scorched note that only comes from food touching metal above about 200C, distinct from bitterness, which means the aromatics were burnt and is a different failure entirely.
Where it goes wrong Too much went in at once, or it went in wet. The wok loses its heat, the food releases water and simmers, the sauce thins instead of clinging, and the dish arrives pale and slack with liquid pooling under it.
Deep frying 96 recipes
- The oil was at temperature before anything went in, measured rather than guessed, and the vessel is no more than two-thirds full.
- Everything went in dry. Surfaces are patted down and any coating is not dripping, because water hitting hot oil erupts and is the one accident this technique actually has.
- The oil recovers between batches. It is back at temperature before the next load goes in rather than falling further with each one.
- A steady vigorous bubbling that slows as it finishes: the bubbles are the food’s own water leaving, so a piece that has gone quiet has stopped drying out and is done.
- Seasoned or finished in the first seconds out of the oil, while the surface is still hot and will hold what lands on it. Anything applied to a cooled crust sits on top and falls off.
Where it goes wrong Too much went in at once and the oil temperature collapsed. The crust forms slowly while the food sits in warm fat absorbing it rather than shedding steam, and it comes out heavy and greasy instead of crisp, which no amount of draining afterwards will fix.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Off-dry Riesling (Mosel Kabinett)
- Also Right
- Gewürztraminer or off-dry Chenin
- From the Taps
- Crisp lager or pilsner
- Zero-Proof
- Agua fresca or iced jasmine tea
Sugar, cold, and low alcohol are the fire code: sweetness tames capsaicin while acid resets the palate; tannin would fan the flames.
Saved on this device and kept across visits: export from My Menu to move them.