This is another of those things where I make an ingredient for a thing instead of a thing itself. This is chili oil, it’s a common ingredient in Chinese cooking, especially Szechuan cuisine. You can absolutely buy it in the store, but I thought this tasted better and it took all of 10 minutes to throw together, so why not post the recipe? I’ll probably tinker with this in the future but this is the current iteration.
Also, just as a note, it’s really not all that spicy until you go to cook with it.
Ingredients
1 cup neutral oil (like vegetable oil)
1 cinnamon stick
2 star anise pods
2 tablespoons szechuan peppercorns
1/3 cup crushed red pepper flakes
A good instant read thermometer
Directions
Add the oil, cinnamon, star anise, and peppercorns to a pot and heat on medium low until it temps at 325 (it shouldn’t take long). Kill the heat and let it sit for 10 minutes, then remove the spices from the oil. I used a slotted spoon and that worked pretty well, you could also strain it if you wanted to.
Add the crushed red pepper flakes to the oil (it should still be pretty hot oil) and let it steep. After about 20 minutes it should smell kind of like popcorn. Dump the whole thing into a mason jar and let it sit. I imagine this stays good pretty much forever, it’s just oil and red pepper flakes.
eatbensmeat 