Chili Crisp

When and how I was first introduced to hot sauce is a funny story. One morning when I was around 4 years old, I was hungry and being the tenacious child that I was, I took it upon myself to find something to eat. I opened the fridge and began to weigh my options. The bottle of ketchup seemed like a legitimate choice to 4-year-old me and I promptly opened the cap and up-righted the bottle directly into my mouth. It wasn't ketchup. My father was a hot sauce fan and I had just sampled a hefty mouthful of Pica Pico. Apparently, no PTSD resulted from this incident and to the surprise of my parents I became a fan of spicy things at a young age. In fifth grade my childhood nickname was “peppers” and would frequent the playground at recess time with a bag of pepperoncini, one of my favorite snacks at the time. Fast forward several years later, while eating Thai food, a small jar on the table interested me. It looked spicy, the red oil was clearly bathing some beautifully dark red chili flakes, but there was something else to this concoction. I tasted it and fell in love. It was a wonderful umami bomb with a spicy savory wonderfulness that I would not soon forget. I began looking for this concoction in various grocery stores and found a jar that I suspected may be similar and immediately bought 4 jars. Soon after I learned that David Chang had begun to sell his own version dubbed “Chili Crunch”. And it was so good. But being that I am an avid gardener of all things, but mainly peppers, it would not be long until I decided that I would have to make my own. I began growing the peppers to make it. This proved to be quite the endeavor. I grew multiple pepper varieties but focused on the Puya chile for its fantastic balance as a spicy and umami chile, which also made good, dried Chile flakes. Over the course of spring, summer, and fall, I picked, washed, plucked the stems and dehydrated all the chiles from my garden that I was not eating fresh or making into hot sauce.

Acquiring ingredients for this can be tricky, as the amounts that are available may not coincide with the quantity that you need, or it is unclear how many cups of an item will be present in a bag measured in grams. For this particular recipe I have measured everything in grams to hopefully simplify things and have begun with all whole ingredients and used a vitamix to process all the dried ingredients to the desired consistency. I have made multiple batches of this and have had assistance from family to prepare everything and still it is an all day affair. This may be in part to our inability to make things simple and purchase premade dumplings to try our chile crisp on at the end, but I digress. Additionally, there is always some beer involved and lively conversation, so efficiency and productivity take a back seat, as they most definitely should.

Chiles:

450g of chile flakes.

I used Chiletepin, puya chiles, and buena mulata grown from my garden and some purchased gochugaru, kashmiri and puya chiles to make sure they were 60-70% of the mix. I have included smoked chiles, habaneros and some other chiles I grew in the past and they were all nice additions.

There are several websites that will direct you to use chile japones, chile arbol, kashmiri chiles, or cayenne, but I think that puya chiles are the star of the show. Puya Chiles are renown in the culinary world for their umami characteristics, while maintaining some spice, although in my opinion, not enough. I like to dry some chiles that I have grown and add them into the mix. Keep in mind the color of your chili flakes will be the color of your final product, so if you add in chiles of all colors, you will likely get a weird brown color.

Mushroom powder:

45g Porcini, 50g Chanterelle, and 50g Shitake.

Most recipes refer to porcini powder or shiitake, but I splurged and bought chanterelles to add in. I also added in shiitakes and some black trumpets since I had some.

Sugar:

Measurement TBD.

Cane sugar is suggested, but coconut sugar has qualities similar to brown sugar, which will help to deepen the complexity of the sauce.

Salt:

175g fine grain Himalayan Sea salt.

Cumin:

50g whole (untoasted) and ground.

Peppercorns:

25g black peppercorns (ground in blender).

140g Sichuan peppercorns.

Star anise:

25 star anise.

These will be removed later, or you can forget and fish them out as you go through the jars.

Avocado oil:

96oz avo oil.

Costco has a great price on avocado oil and it has a nice creamy texture that goes well with the chile crisp.

Shallots and garlic:

2000g of shallots.

1000g of garlic.

Sourced from the local grocery store and Costco. I have always wondered if whole peeled garlic would cut down on prep time but have not been able to find it in bulk.

Ginger:

100g of ginger.

Variations:

Peanuts, soy nuts, fermented black beans, cardamon, and MSG. I did not include any of these in my recipe.

Large non-reactive stock pot

Multiple fine mesh strainers

Canning jars or some other type of container

Large wooden spoon

Cheese cloth

Blender (Vitamix works best)

1). To start you will need to prepare all of your ingredients. Mis en place, everything in its place, prior to cooking. The chiles take a while so I start there. Put some gloves on. Trust me on this one. Although the chiles are not that hot, or are dried, the cumulative spice can take its toll on your sensitive parts if you do not use gloves. Ask me how I know?  That is a whole other story. 

2). Begin by setting up a sheet pan with or without a cooling rack on it (we find this to be negligibly helpful) and begin by ripping off the stems of the chiles. You can use scissors or just break them off, whatever feels comfortable. Attempt to remove some of the seeds.  Rip the chile longitudinally and scrape out the seeds with your GLOVED finger. Don't worry if you miss some seeds, we prefer to have some seeds in the mix. Toss the prepared chile into a container and repeat, until all your chillies are processed. Occasionally, in both the chiles from my garden, and the chiles I purchased online, there was one or two that did not look right, I threw those out just to be safe. Puya chiles are a little more leathery, were as Habaneros and kashmiri chiles crumble quite readily. The shape of the pepper will make seed removal variable, but don't get caught up in seed removal, as some left in the mix is a good thing. I have used Puya chiles, Kashmiri, Gachugaru, buena mulata, chiltepin, Aleppo, west indies habanero, sugar rush red, and smoked jalapenos mostly from my garden. I try to make sure that Puya makes up 60-75% of the mixture of chillies, but dont worry too much about the quantities of other chiles unless you are concerned about spice level in which case you should keep your percentage of Puya higher. 

3). Once you have stemmed and partially seeded all of the chillies, We used a vitamix to grind them to our desired consistency. Some will ultimately end up as chile powder, but that is desirable, as when you stir the chile crisp the small chile pieces and powder infuse all of the oil making a more consistent (less separation of mass vs. oil) and delicious mix.  Pieces of chile flake should be no larger than the top of a  pencil eraser, but I prefer even a little smaller. This helps with the mouthfeel of your chile crisp, as large pieces of chile flake can get stuck in your teeth or or feel scaly in your mouth. 

4). Prep the other ingredients: sichuan peppercorns, in the blender, straight out of the container and made into powder. Sichuan peppercorns are not actually a pepper but a form of citrus and have a lemony-pepper flavor that when used in the wrong ratio can be perceived as a soapy flavor.  For people who have never eaten sichuan peppercorns, a tongue numbing experience is not uncommon and can taste like lemon soap, often ruining the palate. Over time, and reexposure, the flavor becomes tingly, slightly sharp and can energize the deeply rich flavors of the other ingredients. I definitely think that it is a good addition and would consider adding more in the future. 

5). Prepare the mushroom powder - I placed whole dried mushrooms in the blender and ground into a powder.  Chanterelles have a distinct flavor that is great in chile crips, I also used porcini and shiitake. 

6). Prepare the cumin - I used whole cumin and ground it untoasted (it will toast later on). 

7). Measure out the coconut sugar, sea salt, the star anise and place into a large metal or heat resistant bowl. Add in your chile flakes, the mushroom powder, sichuan peppercorn powder, ground black pepper, sugar salt, and fresh ginger into the bowl. 

8). Prepare the garlic - we found that trimming the tops off the head of garlic, placing it on a hard surface, and hitting with the heel of your hand broke apart the cloves easily.  We then placed the garlic in a cocktail shaker (Boston style) and shook vigorously for 10 seconds, mostly removing the skins from the garlic. It is helpful to have some help with this process, as garlic processing can be arduous. If you are able to find whole peeled garlic, this will save you a ton of time, although I would not recommend chopped and jarred garlic, as it typically has preservatives and can taste acidy. 

9). Prepare the ginger - You can choose to peel or not peel, we used a spoon to peel the majority of the skill off, leaving the hard to reach bits. Then we sliced the ginger into discs on the bias and then sliced into matchsticks and then diced into fine pieces. 

10). Prepare the Shallots - Using a mandolin to slice the shallots, then roughly chop into smaller pieces.  We attempted to leave them in rings, but did not like the outcome as much, as the final product contained strings of shallot that was not homogenous with the other ingredients. Chopping the shallots after slicing produces a much better consistency. 

11). Now you can cook! - Using a large stock pot, place the shallots and the oil in a cold pot. Heat the shallots over medium high heat.  The shallots will begin to turn a golden color. This part is difficult to gauge, as too little time in the oil will produce soggy shallots, and too much time could burn them, rendering your pot of oil unusable. When you take the shallots out of the oil they will still be flexible, but once cooled will have a leathery almost crisp texture. Compare the shallots to a paper towel to determine if they are turning a golden color. Keep in mind it is always better to undercook than overcook, but this port always takes longer than I anticipate. Sometimes we nail the doneness, and other times, we accidentally leave then underdone. 

12). Once you have determined that the shallots are done, you can strain through a fine mesh strainer. We used cheesecloth over the strainer and then attempted to squeeze the shallots to release a bit more oil by gathering the cheese cloth and twisting the contents. At this point, remove the cheese cloth so that it does not end up getting stuck in the crispy bits as they cool and crisp up. 

13). Repeat this process using the same oil, but add in the garlic. Heat until you have a rolling boil, stirring frequently, strapping the bits from the bottom so that they do not burn. The garlic will appear to change golden but will be done quickly. You should be very careful at this point to watch the garlic, stirring and scraping the bottom (we used a wooden spoon) and removing the garlic quickly once we noticed the garlic turning a golden color.  Again we poured the oil into a heat proof bowl through a cheesecloth lined strainer. Let the garlic cool a bit and squeeze out the excess oil, but remove the cheese cloth promptly, as the garlic gets very crispy and will entangle the strands of cheese cloth, making it difficult to remove. 

14). Return your garlic shallot infused oil to the pot (without anything in it) and heat to 375 degrees. Be certain there are no bits of garlic or shallot that remain in the pot, as you will likely burn them and contaminate your perfectly flavored oil. Use an instant read thermometer to check your temp and once the oil has reached 375 degrees Fahrenheit, pour the oil over the Chile/Spice/Sugar mixture into the heat proof bowl. It will bubble violently and is very satisfying. Stir the mixture well, allowing the oil to toast and bloom the spices, and dissolving the sugar and salt. 

15). You can remove the star anise once it has cooled for at least 30 mins, or you can leave in and remove as you use the chile crisp. 

16). Now you can add the garlic and shallots back to the mix.   Stir well and place into jars, stirring each time to incorporate an even amount of oil into each jar.

17). This mixture will keep in the fridge for a long time.