Roasted Chili Oil

Roasted Chili Oil 2022/2023

From Serious Eats by Sohla El-Waylly

Why it works: (my favorite part of Serious Eats recipes)

• The combination of árbol, japones, and Kashmiri red chiles offers up a fiery punch along with fruity and bright flavors.
• Frying the shallots and garlic in the same oil used in the chili crisp yields maximum flavor.
• A high ratio of fried shallots and garlic results in more texture and crunch than in the original chili crisp.

click the link below and familiarize yourself with the process

https://www.seriouseats.com/homemade-spicy-chili-crisp

We've done a few permutations now. We have a little of batch #4 left and about two cups of batch #5 left (as of 5/23/23) so we will be making batch #5 shortly if anyone wants to come for a workshop. (Note carefully where we say if it's a double batch or not if you are making this on your own)

De-seed the chiles and pulse the chiles in your coffee grinder that has been dedicated to working as your spice grinder. Grind until they are broken into pieces just larger than a standard chile flake.

Batch #2 (in which we start taking good notes)

Dried Chipotle - 2 pieces

Chile Arbol (hot!) 27g

Asian Medium Kick Chile from Alan Gladstone 20g

Kashmiri 25g

Ancho 28g (Ancho dulls the bright red color, we have omitted Ancho in batch #3)

Ginger about 2” cut into matchsticks 30g

Star Anise 3 pods

Cardoman Pods - 2 split in half

Szechuan pepper 28g (3 TBSP) lightly toasted and then ground

Mushroom Powder 12g (3 TBSP) (Korean Mushroom Powder. This one: https://www.ebay.com/itm/222007105564)

Sugar 20g (2 TBSP)

Kosher Salt 30g (5 tsp)

Cumin - ground 6g (2 TBSP)

MSG - 4g  (1 tsp)

Black Pepper (3/4 tsp)

Shallots 200g (2 cups)

Garlic 65g (3/4 cup)

Peanuts 50g (1/2 cup)

2.5 cups grapeseed oil

February 5th 2023 Batch #3 (Made this batch especially for the sous vide suckling pig soup dumplings)

Chile Arbol (hot!) 27g

Asian Medium Kick Chile from Alan Gladstone 20g

Kashmiri 25g

Chipotles - bumped up to 4

Grated Ginger instead of matchstick

Star Anise - bumped to 6

Black Pepper 8g

Salt - bumped to 2 TABLESPOON (from 5 teaspoon)

Sugar - bumped to 3 TABLESPOON (from 2 TABLESPOON)

Augusta forgot to bring the MSG so I used 1 TBSP of Better than Bouillon Soup base. I think it worked well

Also, we needed more oil for this batch - 

Some side notes/thoughts:

No longer must it be confined to the tingling world of Sichuan; with just a few tweaks—some clever chile swaps and spice upgrades—chili crisp can go global. Pasilla and morita chiles paired with cinnamon, cloves, and achiote take it in a direction that resembles Mexican salsa macha, the crunchy, nutty chile oil from Veracruz.

Or, use Kashmiri red chiles combined with garam masala and diced mango pickle to take it on a trip to India.

Batch 4 (3/19/2023) (Best yet)

Made a Double Batch but weights/volumes here are for single batches

Chipotle Peppers 6g (2500-8000 SU (scoville units))

Chie Arbol 27g (15,000 to 30,000 SU)

Thai 4g (50,000 to 100,000 SU)

New Mexico Red 20g (700 to 4000 SU)

Gochugaru (Korean Pepper Flakes) 25g (1500 SU)

Garlic 65g

Shallots 200g

Grated Ginger 30g

Star Anise 6 pods

Black Pepper 8g

Salt 2 TBSP

Sugar 3 TBSP

Better Than Bouillion 1 TBSP

Cumin 6g

MSG 4g

Mushroom Powder 12g

Cardoman 4 pods

Szechuan Pepper 28g 

Peanut Oil 3.5 cups

Batch 5 - April 2023 at Breck’s AirBNB in Atlanta. 

Double batch

7.5 cups of peanut oil (increased from 5 cups)

Shallots 400g

Garlic 130g

Chili Arbol 60g

Chili Japones 40g

Korean Chili Powder 50g

Chipotle 20g

Fresh Ginger 75g (grated. Allison doesn’t like the matchstick ginger)

Star Anise 12 pieces

Sugar 40g

Honey 1 TBSP

Salt 4 TBSP Must use Kosher salt. (Note: Tthis batch wasn't as good. Didn’t have that salty thing going on b/c I used fine salt.)

Cumin (toasted and ground) 12g

MSG 8g

Black Pepper (toasted and ground) 16g

40g of Szechuan peppercorns total. toasted! 20 grams ground + 20 grams whole - I backed off a bit from the 56g that the recipe calls for...this was an error - go back to 56g!!

6 green cardamon - whole -not split

6 black cardamon  - whole - not split

Dried porcini 28g (was expensive) chopped in cuisinart than ground in spice grinder)

Better than Bouillon: 1TBSP

and make sure to take good notes!