Spicy chili oil

Anyone who has been following this blog or on Instagram for a long time will have noticed that there is hardly any other food that I love as much as ramen. (With the exception of burgers maybe)

Ramen consist of 5 different components:

Ramen, the noodles that give it its name,

Tare, the "sauce" that gives the whole thing the right spice kick,

Dashi, the broth that serves as the base of the soup,

Toppings that make ramen so incredibly diverse

and last but not least, oil.

Sesame oil goes well with some variants, but ramen gets a special touch with spicy oils with ingredients such as shallots or garlic.

Today I want to show you an incredibly delicious chilli oil that is based on Sichuan chilli oil. Due to the many different spices, it might seem a bit daunting at first glance, but it is definitely worth the effort and the ingredients should actually be found in every well-stocked Asian market.

Duration: approx. 30 minutes

Difficulty: easy

Makes: Approximately 700ml of oil

Ingredients:

3g cloves

6g Sichuan pepper grains

2g black pepper grains

2 sticks of cinnamon

4g cardamom capsules

3 bay leaves

2g coriander seeds

2g mustard seeds

6g star anise

125g Gochugaru (Korean chilli flakes) or more, depending on your taste for spicyness

20g salt

15g sesame seeds

650g peanut oil (or rapeseed, sesame, soy, avocado ... the main thing is heat-resistant) 50g ginger (weighed with peel)

40g garlic (weighed with peel)

10g Kafir lime leaves (frozen)

Preparation:

Weigh the cloves, both pepper, cardamom, coriander, mustard and star anise together and add the cinnamon and bay leaves.

The ingredients are then toasted in a pan over medium heat. I think the recipe was worth it for the scent alone. : D

Take care that nothing burns and put the ingredients back in a bowl for later.

In a heat-resistant glass bottle or a screw-top jar, weigh the gochugaru with the salt and sesame seeds.

When the toasted spices have cooled down a bit, you can add them.

You could also add the spices later to the still hot oil and let them steep in it. If you then sift them out and just mix the oil with the chilli flakes and sesame seeds, they are great to use with the oil for rice and pasta dishes. Since I mostly only use the oil, I just leave the spices in so that they can still give off flavor while the oil is in storage.

You weigh the oil in a saucepan, cut the garlic and ginger into slices and put them in the cold oil, they should give off as much flavor as possible into the oil.

Then heat the oil over medium heat and stir occasionally. It took me 12 minutes for the garlic and ginger pieces to look lightly fried. Only then did I add the lime leaves and heat everything together for another 3 minutes.

If your garlic and ginger should get dark faster, just add the leaves a little earlier and reduce the total time, nothing should get too dark, otherwise a bitter taste will be developed.

Pour the oil through a sieve into another saucepan. The still hot oil is then poured directly onto the chilli-spice mixture. Do not get burned and just put the oil in a vessel that you are absolutely sure is heat-resistant. If you don't have one, put the spices and Co. in the saucepan with the oil and let it cool down.

Let the oil steep for a few hours or, better, overnight and this delicious spice oil for Asian dishes is ready.

It is best to store it in the refrigerator.

Guten Appetit!

If you've read this far, you might have noticed that I'm not running any adds, to improve your reading experience and because I deeply believe, that vegan recipes should be accesible to anyone.

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