New Year, Another Chili Oil

Season Two Episode One

I’ll admit, this feels like a bit of an inbox intrusion. I said goodbye two years ago. It was an honest and heartfelt au revoir. They were literally called ‘Goodbye meatballs’! We laughed, we cried. YES YOU DID. And yet here I am. Crawling back with a fresh new banner logo and spicy tagline. Like a tortoise rising very slowly from the rubble of newsletters past and with a bit of AI-assisted design pizzazz.

I’ll spare you the in-depth review of our two years apart. In a feeble attempt to bridge that gap, however, here are some cliff notes: Alex and I got married, I purchased a 70-acre farm in Maine with my brother-in-law, our dog had surgery but is otherwise living her best life, I spent a week in the hospital with rhabdomyolysis, Alex accepted a fellowship at MGH in Boston where she’ll begin in July, and I recently left my job of six+ years.

If you’re wondering — why now?! — see the last of six bullet points above. Alex also recently told me to “get my ass back in the kitchen.” Her words, not mine. While I make no promises for how long ‘LFAS: Season Two’ will last, I do plan to pare back its frequency to every other week to keep us all sane. Mostly me.

Now that we’re all caught up and with our brief FAQ out of the way, let’s talk about Chinese take-out! This year, Alex and I made a Chinese-inspired menu for Thanksgiving dinner. It was a first. While Chinese take-out is probably my favorite of all cuisines (photographic evidence, Shanghai circa 2016), we’d never actually considered cooking Chinese food ourselves. It just seemed too outside our wheelhouse. Too many unfamiliar pantry items. Too hard to replicate that restaurant-quality flavor.

My late grandfather’s favorite Chinese take-out order was fried chicken wings. You didn’t have to ask him. He wanted fried chicken wings. Maybe a side of spare ribs. Years ago, when restaurants still employed people to deliver food, my father surprised him from afar with Chinese take-out on his birthday. Unfortunately, when the delivery person showed up at his house in New Jersey, he refused to open the door. Because every male in my family tree is unreasonably stubborn, my father wouldn’t let the delivery person leave until my grandfather accepted the order and my grandfather would not open the door until he had something akin to dual-factor authentication of the interloper’s identity and purpose. By the time my father had negotiated a three-way settlement, the chicken wings were likely cold. But you get the idea. The guy loved chicken wings.

And so for Thanksgiving, Alex and I made fried chicken wings, Chinese take-out style. Alex found the recipe on a blog called The Woks of Life, written by the multigenerational, Chinese American Leung family. To paraphrase their blog, what began in 2013 as an attempt to document their family’s history through food has since become an online authority on Chinese cooking in English. And they too are from New Jersey! Full circle, Grandpa. But back to the chicken wings. They were delicious. Inspirational even. At that moment, I realized we could have been making restaurant-quality Chinese food all along. To placate my badgering about our next foray into Chinese home cooking, Alex bought me a signed copy of their cookbook for Christmas. And like a tiny Christmas miracle, ‘LFAS: Season Two’ was born.

This year’s newsletter will be made up entirely of recipes from The Woks of Life. I know what you’re thinking. You’ll need to find spices you’ve never heard of like sand ginger and galangal. You’ll probably need to buy a wok. MSG is bad for you. Relaaax! That myth was debunked years ago. The rest is probably true. But it’s 2024 — get outside your culinary comfort zone. Live a little. Let’s cook some Chinese take-out!

(Not Just) Another Chili Oil

The Woks of Life, Page 275

We’ve made chili oil before. And I may have said it was the best and only chili oil recipe you will ever need. Well, I was wrong. Sue me. As Grandpa would say, you need the right tool for the right job, and in this case, you need authentic Chinese chili oil, which we’ll use as the basis for several upcoming recipes, including the dan dan noodles in our next newsletter. If you can resist, consider tucking this batch away for next time.

A quick note on the ingredients. You’ll need to make a trip to your local Chinese or Asian grocery store, which I recommend because it’s fun and eye-opening — AN ENTIRE AISLE of frozen dumplings! You can also purchase from an online grocer like The Mala Market. I’ve provided links below for the harder-to-find ingredients but your local grocery will undoubtedly be a cheaper option if you have one. One final point — do not replace the Sichuan chili flakes with your run-of-the-mill crushed red pepper. The former is a finer, brighter chili flake from Sichuan, which may also be labeled chili powder.

Makes 1 1/2 cups

• 1 1/2 cups neutral oil (such as peanut, canola, vegetable)

• 1 Chinese cassia cinnamon stick, about 3 inches long

• 4 star anise

• 3 tablespoons whole Sichuan peppercorns

• 2 large bay leaves

• 1 teaspoon whole cloves

• 1 black cardamom pod

• 3 pieces dried sand ginger

• 2 large garlic cloves, lightly crushed

• 1 medium shallot, halved

• 3/4 cup Sichuan chili flakes

The process is pretty straightforward and should take between 30 minutes and an hour. We’ll infuse the oil with the spices and aromatics, heat it to just the right temperature, pour it over our chili flakes, stir and let cool.

Step 1. Add the oil, cinnamon stick, star anise, peppercorns, bay leaves, cloves, cardamom, sand ginger, garlic, and shallot to a small pot. Cook over medium heat to begin and then gradually reduce to low as the oil reaches between 225F and 250F. I had to remove the pot from heat momentarily as the oil temperature exceeded 250F. It’s helpful to have a thermometer on hand. I’m using an analog, frying thermometer in the pot, found at my neighborhood grocery store.

Let the oil infuse for at least 30 minutes and up to an hour for best results. Remove the garlic and shallot when uniformly golden in color. The spices should be dark but not black or burned.

Step 2. Use a slotted spoon to remove and discard the larger spices and aromatics. Increase the heat slightly to raise the oil temperature. The right temperature will depend on how roasted your chili flakes are — for bright red chili flakes that aren’t very roasted or dried like the ones pictured above, shoot for between 275F and 300F. For darker, more roasted, dried chili flakes, aim for between 250F and 275F.

Step 3. Pour the hot oil through a fine-mesh strainer onto the chili flakes in a heatproof bowl. The chili flakes should sizzle but not burn. Stir to evenly distribute the oil.

If you plan to use your chili oil as, well, chili oil, stir in 1/2 teaspoon of fine sea salt. If you plan to incorporate it into another dish such as our upcoming dan dan noodles, simply allow to cool and store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

While this was not the plan, it looks like we’ll be making a second batch for the noodles. Yum and Happy New Year!