Chilli Oil

Ingredients

• 1 garlic cloves
• 100 g dried chilli powder
• 5 g salt
• 15 g roasted white sesame seeds
• 1 millet chilli
• 150 ml peanut oil
• 10 g five-spice powder
• 1 cardamom
• 3-5 spring onion
• 1 star anise
• 20-50 Sichuan pepper
• 2-3 bay leaf
• 2-3 white cardamom
• 1 thumb-thickness ginger slices
• 30 g sugar
• 5 ml white vinegar

Method

Chilli oil is a hot-oil-finishing technique built on controlled infusion: you steep whole aromatics in oil at a temperature just below smoking point, then pour that infused oil over ground spices to bloom them without burning them to char. The result is layered heat — floral and numbing from Sichuan pepper, sharp from fresh chilli, rounded by sesame and five-spice.

Heat 150 ml peanut oil in a wok to 180–200°C (it will shimmer and move like water, not smoke). Add the star anise, Sichuan pepper, bay leaves, white cardamom, ginger slices and spring onion all at once. Watch the oil carefully: the aromatics should turn from dark green to mahogany and release a mouth-watering fragrance within 2–3 minutes. You're not charring them — you're volatilising their essential oils into the fat. The moment you smell toasted ginger and anise clearly, remove the wok from heat and strain out the solids through fine mesh. Discard them. The oil will continue cooking from residual heat; let it cool to 70–80°C before proceeding — about 8 minutes.

Combine the dried chilli powder, roasted sesame seeds, finely chopped garlic, minced millet chilli, salt, five-spice powder and cardamom in a heatproof bowl. This dry mixture is your spice bed; the hot oil will bloom each component at once. Reheat the infused oil to 210°C (small wisps of smoke, not a rolling plume), then pour it steadily over the spice mixture while stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. The chilli powder will hydrate and deepen in colour; the sesame will crack and release its oil. Work quickly — don't let the powder scorch black.

Once the oil has cooled to 50°C, add the white vinegar. It will bubble and foam briefly: the acidity cuts the richness and lifts the numbing heat from the Sichuan pepper, preventing the oil from sitting heavy on the palate. Stir for 30 seconds, then add the sugar. The sugar tempers the chilli bite and extends the flavour profile into savoury-sweet territory, which is essential — pure heat without sweetness becomes one-note.

Cool to room temperature before storing in a sterilised jar. It will thicken slightly as the oil sets; this is correct. Use within three weeks.