Chiu Chow Chili Oil Uses

Homemade Chiu Chow Chili Sauce RecipeChiu chow sauce or chao zhou sauce, is a condiment that you’ll want to put on everything. A chili oil with lots of garlic, you won’t believe how good it is.

▢ 15 fresh chili peppers (e.g., Thai birds eye chilies but adjust to taste / pepper type) (thinly sliced)

▢ 2 teaspoons salt (or to taste)

▢ 2 heads garlic (peeled)

▢ 1¼ cups neutral oil (like vegetable or canola)

▢ 1 cup Sichuan chili flakes

▢ ½ teaspoon sugar

▢ 2 tablespoons soy sauce

Slice the fresh chili peppers thinly. Place into a mortar and pestle along with 2 teaspoons salt. Grind and mix thoroughly with the pestle—you dont need to form a paste, just break down the peppers slightly. This is my shortcut for salt-preserved chilies. Im not really sure if it actually approximates salt-preserved chilies, but it does add really great spice and texture! Set aside and prepare the rest of your ingredients.

Mince the garlic. I used a garlic press; a food processor also works well. Then again, nothing wrong with old-fashioned elbow grease!

Heat ½ cup of your oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic. Stir and let fry gently until the garlic turns golden yellow in color. The goal is to cook off the moisture and allow the garlic to soak up the oil—like a confit. It should NOT become crisp or fry intensely at all. You may need to reduce the heat to medium-low / low.

When the garlic is ready (about 30 minutes later, give or take 10 minutes depending on how cautious youre being), add the salted chilies. Stir and let fry gently for another 5-10 minutes, again watching closely so as not to burn the oil and spices.

Next, add the last ¾ cups of oil to the saucepan to heat through. Too much oil early on in the process makes it more difficult to evenly fry the garlic and chilies, which is why we started with only 1/2 cup.

Now add your chili flakes and sugar. Stir to combine. Finish off with 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, and youve got a delicious jar of homemade chiu chow oil! (Feel free to re-season with up to a teaspoon of additional salt if needed. You may want to wait until its cooled first to get a more accurate read on the flavor.)

Transfer to a clean jar. In our experience, the sauce stores well at the coldest part of the refrigerator (e.g., in the way back) for a good 2-3 months. And, of course, always dip into it with a clean spoon/chopsticks to preserve it. If theres any foul smell or the sound of gas escaping when you crack it open, discard it. But were betting it doesnt last past the 2-week mark!

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Overall, the food of Guangdong (also known as Canton in Cantonese) focuses more on fresh flavours, light dishes and that all important umami taste rather than the fiery chillies and numbing peppercorns of northern regions like Sichuan and Hunan. But there are certain oils used for dipping, flavouring soups and as a base for sauces that are the exception to this rule. There’s shacha sauce, which combines chillies, brill and dried shrimp for a deep, very savoury, slightly spicy flavour, and Chiu Chow chilli oil (also known as Chaozhou sauce), which has taken the world by storm.

In Guangdong the oil is typically served at the table for diners to add to whatever they please, but it’s also used to dress aromatic beef stews, to flavour broths containing all sorts of meats and vegetables and as a dipping sauce for steamed dumplings. It’s popular outside of Guangdong, and in places such as Hong Kong the oil itself is used for stir-frying, while the dregs at the bottom are kept for finishing dishes that benefit from a little kick of spice. Outside of Chinese cuisine, it can be used as a marinade for steaks, spread on a cheese sandwich, stirred through hummus or even as a flavour for ice cream. There are an awful lot of chilli oils in the world, but Chiu Chow is the only one to include an aromatic, chewy, flavourful sediment, which ensures it won’t sit languishing in a cupboard for months on end.

Not all chilli oils are created equal, though. Your average chilli oil tends to be a simple combination of chilli and oil, with the oil heated up, then poured over dried chilli and left to steep – resulting in that classic scarlet hue – and the dried chilli usually discarded. That’s all well and good if you’re after an extra hit of heat and colour, but if you want something that has a real depth of flavour and plenty of punch, there’s one oil that rises above the rest.

Walk into any restaurant in the country these days, and there’s a good chance you’ll find a bottle of chilli oil sitting on the table, ready for you to dip or sprinkle or pour at your leisure. Although chilli oil first arrived on these shores courtesy of Chinese cuisine, it’s become a universally loved condiment, and as a nation, we’ll eat it with absolutely anything.

There are a number of ways to use our award winning Happy Eating House Chiu Chow Chilli Oil in your everyday meals to add a hint of garlic and spice, whether its an Asian style stir fry or simply an omelette or pasta dish. Browse through a variety of different recipes to see how you could be spicing up your meals!

FAQ

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