Chiu Chow Chili Oil

The most amazing infused oil/condiment on the planet!

Chiu Chow Chili Oil

Ingredients:

1-2 cups neutral oil, depending on what ratio of oil to paste you prefer (we always go with 1 cup of oil and use organic grapeseed oil)

5 medium sized medium fresh red Fresno chili peppers

1 tsp salt

2 heads of garlic, finely minced

1/2 to 1 dried chipotle chilies, chopped or ground into flakes

1 Tbsp sugar

1.5 Tbsp soy sauce

1 Tbsp sesame oil

Equipment needed/useful:

Small food processor

Large food processor

Three small bowls for prep ingredients

Medium sized heavy bottom pot

Directions:

1. Start by using the small food processor to process the fresh chili peppers, dry chili peppers and garlic. Clean the processor between ingredients and keep them separate and set aside.
2. For the dried chilis, I usually take 4-5 of them and dry fry them for a couple minutes on a medium/hot pan just to roast them a bit and bring out their flavor. Watch them closely and turn them over from time to time. They can burn easily and you just want them to be slightly blackened.
3. Also, for the dried chilis are roasted, I cut them up into smaller pieces and use the big food processor first then the little food processor to get them all chopped up into flakes.
4. For the red chilis, I roughly chop them and put them straight into the small food processor and turn them into a paste.
5. For the garlic, this recipe definitively uses 2 entire heads of garlic and all those little cloves need to be cleaned off. The easiest way to do this is to break all the cloves off both heads and dump them into a clean, covered plastic container, cover it and shake the crap out of it and most of your work will be done for you. Then just clean the rest up and put them into the small food processor and turn it all into garlic paste.
6. Then I like to pre-measure all the rest of the ingredients and have them close and ready.
7. Heat up the pan and add 1/3 of you oil (in my case that’s 1/3 cup) and make sure the oil is hot.
8. Add the garlic to the hot oil and stir it to make an even layer on the bottom of the pan. Lower the heat to low and simmer for 10-20 minutes, just till all the garlic is starting to turn golden brown. Stir from time to time so the garlic does not burn.

Once the garlic is browning nicely, add the fresh chili paste and stir to combine. Continue simmering this mixture for about 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes of simmering, add the rest of the oil, the chili flakes, sugar, soy sauce and sesame oil, stir and put in a glass jar to be stored.

This stuff goes on everything but is a key ingredient to my hot & sour soup.